Prakash Mishra

Applied Economics Doctoral Candidate

Contact Information

Primary Email:
mishrap@wharton.upenn.edu

Research Interests: Environmental economics, industrial organization, spatial

Links: Personal Website

Research

I am on the job market this Fall 2024-2025. Please find my job market paper abstract and website here.

[Job Market Paper] The Global Allocative Efficiency of Deforestation

This study quantifies the impact of a global Pigouvian tax on carbon emissions from agricultural deforestation on the levels and spatial allocation of deforestation. Extending a classic trade model, I micro-found a measure for general equilibrium abatement costs. I estimate all key model elasticities, including the first global deforestation elasticity to agricultural rents at 0.42 (0.1, 1) In counterfactuals, a $51 Pigouvian tax would have abated 75% of realized deforestation damages between 1982-2016 as land reallocates away from agriculture. General equilibrium channels raise abatement costs by 50% relative to previous partial equilibrium estimates. Absent gains from trade, abatement costs would double. Finally, I decompose deforestation into an effect of trade and an effect of geography. Trade liberalization since 1980 has driven a 0.31% increase in deforested area, or 140,000 sq. km., lowering gains from trade by 13%.

[In submission] An evaluation of protected area policies in the European Union

The European Union designates 26% of its landmass as a protected area, limiting economic development to favor biodiversity. This paper uses the staggered introduction of protected-area policies between 1985 and 2020 to study the selection of land for protection and the causal effect of protection on vegetation cover and nightlights. Our results reveal protection did not affect the outcomes in any meaningful way across four decades, all countries, protection cohorts, and a wide range of land and climate attributes. We conclude that European conservation efforts lack ambition because policymakers select land for protection not threatened by development.

Agricultural pollution taxes and industrial farming

This paper assesses the effects of a fertilizer NOx tax on agricultural firms in the EU. Farming entails two competing externalities: an emissions externality from the use of Nitrogen fertilizers, and a land use externality from competition with forests. The land used by farming is growing increasingly concentrated: 3% of farms farm nearly half of the agricultural land. I focus on a possible consequence of NOx taxes. If larger farms are net dirtier and more productive than small producers, a NOx tax could increase land demand and thus drive greater deforestation and land degradation. In a conceptual framework, I show that this trade-off hinges on the marginal damages to each externality, and their correlation with firm-level productivities. Current work finds marginal damages from NOx vary greatly in the distribution: while there are limited marginal damages in fertilizer costs for small farms (<25,000 EUR/year in damages), larger farms entail a 5% increase in fertilizer costs (>100,000 EUR/year in damages) for a 1% increase output.

Teaching

BEPP250 – MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS

This course will introduce you to “managerial economics” which is the application of microeconomic theory to managerial decision-making. Microeconomic theory is a remarkably useful body of ideas for understanding and analyzing the behavior of individuals and firms in a variety of economic settings. The goal of the course is for you to understand this body of theory well enough so that you can effectively analyze managerial (and other) problems in an economic framework. While this is a “tools” course, we will cover many real-world applications, particularly business applications, so that you can witness the usefulness of these tools and acquire the skills to use them yourself. We will depart from the usual microeconomic theory course by giving more emphasis to prescription: What should a manager do in order to achieve some objective? That course deliverable is to compare with description: Why do firms and consumers act the way they do? The latter will still be quite prominent in this course because only by understanding how other firms and customers behave can a manager determine what is beswt for him or her to do. Strategic interaction is explored both in product markets and auctions. Finally, the challenges created by asymmetric information – both in the market and within the firm – are investigated.

BEPP/OIDD 2630/9630 – Environmental & Energy Economics and Policy

This course examines environmental and energy issues from an economist’s perspective. Over the last several decades, energy markets have become some of the most dynamic markets of the world economy, as they experienced a shift from heavy regulation to market-driven incentives. First, we look at scarcity pricing and market power in electricity and gasoline markets. We then study oil and gas markets, with an emphasis on optimal extraction and pricing and geopolitical risks that investors in hydrocarbon resources face. We then shift gears to the sources of environmental problems, and how policy makers can intervene to solve some of these problems. We talk about the economic rationale for a broad range of possible policies: environmental taxes, subsidies, performance standards and cap-and-trade. In doing so, we discuss fundamental concepts in environmental economics, such as externalities, valuation of the environment and the challenge of designing international agreements. There is special emphasis on the economics and finance of renewable energy, including an introduction to energy storage. Other topics include energy efficiency and transportation policies such as fuel-economy and electric vehicle standards.

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