We analyse the effects of rainfall and temperature on yields of paddy and millets (pearl millet and sorghum) in India for the period 1966-1999, at the district level. Unlike other studies, we control for fertiliser use and irrigation. We find that paddy (India's leading food crop) is sensitive to the climate variables but also to fertiliser use and irrigation. Millets are less affected by climate variables although sorghum shows some sensitivity to temperature. Our results have important implications for how India's agriculture will adapt to climate change.

In many developing countries, many households, especially in rural areas, are still heavily reliant on solid biomass as a cooking fuel, despite its negative health and environmental implications. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a clean alternative, but its higher cost implies that its use is often limited to the richer, urban areas of a country. This paper focuses on the Indian context and investigates, over a relatively long time-frame, whether social spillover effects might have played a role in a household's decision to use LPG, and how these effects varied across different sub-populations. Using data from several waves of the National Sample Survey (NSS), the recent ACCESS survey, and the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), this paper provides multiple strands of evidence that, taken jointly, suggest that positive social spillovers are present. Spillovers are also found to be stronger for households that belong to social networks, than for households that do not belong to any network. Our results provide partial evidence on convergence in LPG use rates across subgroups of the Indian population, and have strong implications for policy-makers around the world who could leverage lessons from social learning to encourage consumers to switch to cleaner sources of energy.

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As countries develop, they are likely to face challenges in meeting growing energy demand and in ensuring energy security. Given this, and the problem of climate change, improving demand-side energy efficiency is pivotal to ensuring sustainable development. However, agents often underinvest in energy-efficient technologies due to behavioral failures such as low levels of energy-related financial literacy, defined as the combination of energy knowledge and cognitive abilities needed to evaluate the lifetime costs of durables. Using novel data, we analyze the levels and determinants of energy-related financial literacy of households in urban areas in the eastern lowlands of Nepal, and whether it is correlated with their attitudes towards replacement of energy-inefficient appliances. We find that respondents have low levels of energy-related financial literacy, and higher levels of literacy are associated with more rational attitudes towards appliance replacement. The findings of this study are relevant to addressing the energy-efficiency gap in developing countries.

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