Azhar Hussain

Azhar Hussain

Job Market Candidate

Department of Economics

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Languages
English, Hindi, Urdu
Key Expertise
Development Economics

About me

Azhar is a PhD candidate in the Department of Economics. He is on the job market in 2024/25. His main fields of interest are Environmental Economics and Development Economics. The central theme of his research is understanding the impact of environmental externalities in developing countries using empirical methods.

His job market paper examines the impact of flooding on firms in Indonesia; in particular, looking at it from a within-production function lens.

Contact Information

Email
a.hussain21@lse.ac.uk

Office Address
Department of Economics
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
UK

Contacts and Referees

Placement Officer 
Matthias Doepke

Supervisors/Advisors 
Tim Besley  
Robin Burgess 
Gharad Bryan 
Daniel Sturm  

References
Tim Besley
Department of Economics 
London School of Economics and Political Science 
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE, UK
t.besley@lse.ac.uk  

Robin Burgess 
Department of Economics
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE, UK
r.burgess@lse.ac.uk

Gharad Bryan
Department of Economics
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE, UK
g.t.bryan@lse.ac.uk 

Daniel Sturm
Department of Economics
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE, UK
d.m.sturm@lse.ac.uk 

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Job Market Paper

Flooding and Firms in Indonesia 

Developing countries, with their economic centers often located in vulnerable areas, are expected to face the brunt of climate change impacts. Indonesia faces heightened disaster risks, with floods posing the most significant threat. In this paper, I first establish a link between historical flood events and a decline in regional economic output, deterrence for new business entries, and the erosion of physical capital. I then develop a quantitative framework to assess the impact of forward-looking flood distortions on firms. The analysis reveals large and heterogeneous costs of flood distortions across industries. Installing flood defenses in flood-prone regions could help mitigate these impacts, but the gains are reduced due to equilibrium adjustments and negative firm selection on entry. Most industries in Indonesia appear to be adapting to floods over time; however, equilibrium forces counteract these gains for many of those sectors. I Link to paper.

 

Publications and Research

Publications

A Practical Guide to Climate Econometrics: Navigating Key Decision Points in Weather and Climate Data Analysis, with James Rising, Kevin Schwarzwald, and Ana Trisovic. Journal of Open Source Education, 7(75), 90, 2024. 
The use of econometrics to study how social, economic, and biophysical systems respond to weather has started a torrent of new research. It is allowing researchers to better understand the impacts of climate change, disaster risk and responses, resource management, human behavior, and sustainable development. In light of this, we present a new tutorial that offers step-by-step guidance on carrying out a climate econometric analysis. Moreover, it features reusable code snippets in multiple programming languages and points to several pre-existing packages while providing some introductory comments on their appropriate use. 

 

Working Papers

Global Gains from a Green Energy Transition: Evidence on Coal-Fired Power and Air Quality Dissatisfaction, with Tim Besley. 
Phasing out coal-fired power in favor of renewables is a central part of the green transition. As well as reducing carbon emissions, it should have an immediate and perceptible benefit for air quality. This paper uses geocoded survey data from 51 countries to show that people living within 40 km of coal-fired power plants are indeed more dissatisfied with ambient air quality. We then construct the equivalent variation for closing down coal-fired power plants and find that air quality benefits support the case for a green transition, with implications for policy action in this area.

From Streets to Ballots: The Impact of Climate Protests on Public Awareness and Electoral Outcomes, with Javad Shamsi and Ranjana Sinha. 
Climate-related protests have become increasingly widespread across the world. This paper empirically investigates the impact of climate protests on public awareness and subsequent political behavior. First, we document that such protests significantly elevate climate change awareness, as evidenced by increased Google search intensity for climate-related topics and heightened media coverage in both the United States and Europe. We then demonstrate that this surge in public interest translates into tangible political action. Specifically, we observe that the widespread Fridays for Future protests in Europe increased support for Green parties in the 2019 European Parliamentary elections. Additionally, we employ textual analysis to present suggestive evidence of the protests' influence on the prioritization of climate issues in UK Parliamentary speeches. Our findings suggest that climate protests have the potential to shape policy discourse. 

Works in Progress

Understanding Environmental Preferences and the Drivers of Climate Action, with Tim Besley and Michael Callen. 
Developing Climate and Nature Module for the Gallup World Poll. Funding secured.

Illuminating Development: Socioeconomic Impact of Rural Electrification in India
In preliminary analysis stage. Funding secured.

Political Economy of Religious Salience in Electoral Competition: Theory and Evidence from India
MRes Thesis, draft available upon request. Theoretical model is ready, empirical analysis pending.