IIT Madras is a public technical and research university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1959, it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance.

IIT Madras has been ranked as the top engineering institute in India for four years in a row by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the MHRD

It currently offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees across 16 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. About 596 faculty belonging to science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and industrial consultancy.

IIT Madras

The objective of this study is to estimate environmental energy efficiency (EEE)—defined as energy efficiency measures incorporating undesirable output in the production process—for high-income, middle-income and low-income economies as well as at the global level for the period 1993–2013. Under the broad framework of Data Envelopment Analysis, the traditional input-oriented measures of efficiency, the joint production approach and the latest by-production approach have been used to assess EEE. The empirical results confirm a gradual improvement in EEE level except in the years 1998–1999 and 2009. The high-income economies spearheaded this improvement in EEE followed by the middle-income and low-income economies. This might be explained by the use of a relatively greater share of renewable energy in high-income economies. Moreover, the middle-income economies appear to converge to global EEE levels while low-income economies have lagged behind. Policy implications of our results are also discussed. © 2020, Springer Nature B.V.

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

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Energy Efficiency

A global level analysis of environmental energy efficiency: an application of data envelopment analysis

The present paper aims at measuring energy use efficiency in Indian cement industry and estimating the factors explaining inter-firm variations in energy use efficiency. Within the framework of production theory, data envelopment analysis has been used to measure energy use efficiency. Using firm-level data from electronic PROWESS database for the years 1989–1990 through 2006–2007, the study first estimates energy use efficiency of the firms and then compares the efficiency scores across. Empirical results suggest that there is enough scope for the Indian cement firms to reduce energy uses, though this potential for energy saving varies across firms. A second-stage regression analysis reveals that firms with larger production volume have higher energy efficiency scores and that age of the firms impacts differently on energy use efficiency obtained from two different models. Also, higher quality of labor force associates with higher energy use efficiency.

Energy use efficiency of Indian cement companies: a data envelopment analysis

Energy use in the production of desirable output often results in the generation of undesirable emission with detrimental impact on the environment, and whose disposal is frequently monitored by public authorities. Previous studies, however, paid little attention to undesirable output and environmental regulation related to its disposal while estimating energy use efficiency. Analysis of energy efficiency ignoring undesirable output could result in biased estimates of efficiency. Thus the aim of this paper is to estimate energy use efficiency in the presence of energy related undesirable emission by taking Indian cement industry as a suitable context of my analysis. Depending on the presence and absence of undesirable output and environmental regulation, three measures of efficiency have been estimated at the state level from 2000–01 to 2004–05 by applying Data Envelopment Analysis. Energy efficiency is defined as the ability of the producer to reduce the energy input to the largest extent possible, conditional on the given level of output and non-energy inputs. Empirical results reveal that energy efficiency estimates are biased if only desirable output is considered. Results also demonstrate that environmental regulation has a reinforcing effect on energy use efficiency.

Energy Policy

Do undesirable output and environmental regulation matter in energy efficiency analysis? Evidence from Indian Cement Industry

The aim of this paper is to examine the existence and direction of the causal relationship between energy consumption and output growth in the Indian cement industry for the period 1979–80 to 2004–05. The most recently developed panel unit root, a heterogeneous panel cointegration and panel-based error correction model, is applied within a multivariate framework. The empirical results confirm a positive, long-run cointegrated relationship between output and energy consumption when heterogeneous state effects are taken into account. We also found a long-run, bi-directional relationship between energy consumption and output growth in the Indian cement industry for the study period, implying that an increase in energy consumption directly affects the growth of this sector and that growth stimulates further energy consumption. These empirical findings imply that energy consumption and output are jointly determined and affect each other. The empirical evidence also suggests the implementation of energy conservation policies oriented toward improving energy-use efficiency to avoid any negative impacts of the conservation policies on the growth of this industry.

Causality between energy consumption and output growth in the Indian cement industry: An application of the panel vector error correction model (VECM)

Coal combustion, for the production of cement, generates considerable amount of environmentally detrimental carbon dioxide as an undesirable by-product. Thus, this paper aims at measuring environmental efficiency within a joint production framework of both desirable and undesirable output using Data Envelopment Analysis and Directional Distance Function. Carbon dioxide is considered as an input in one context and as an undesirable output in the other with the environmental efficiency being defined accordingly. Using 3 digit sate level data from the Annual Survey of Industries for the years 2000-2001 through 2004-2005, the proposed models are applied to estimate environmental efficiency of Indian cement industry. Empirical results show that there is enough potential for the industry to improve its environmental efficiency with efficiency being varied across states. Results also show that Indian cement industry, if faced with environmental regulation, has the potential to expand desirable output and contract undesirable output with the given inputs. However, regulation has a potential cost in terms of lower feasible expansion of desirable output as compared to unregulated scenario. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.