GE4050- Directed Research Projects

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre

India has made rapid progress in development through large scale industrial investments. Undertaken by both public and private sector, these investments usually take the form of discrete projects with a specific life cycle. While more than 50,000 large projects have been commissioned and completed, their cumulative impact is unclear. It is possible that density of existing investments influences or even amplifies the impact of a new project. At the same time, the environmental impacts might also be disproportionately related to cumulative investments. Using a unique data set that provides location and quarterly progress of all large projects with capital expenditures greater than ?10cr, we will investigate the patterns of social, economic, and environmental change over space and time. Combined with spatially-explicit data on land use, population density, social structure, and nightlights, this project will contribute directly to increasing the efficiency of capital investments in India while also estimating the trade-offs between development and environment.