Akshaya Jha

Assistant Professor Carnegie Mellon University

  • Pittsburgh PA

Akshaya Jha’s research interests lie at the intersection of energy and environmental economics and industrial organization.

Contact

Carnegie Mellon University

View more experts managed by Carnegie Mellon University

Biography

Jha’s research interests lie at the intersection of energy and environmental economics and industrial organization. His research uses a combination of economic modeling and causal inference techniques to quantify the economic and environmental costs and benefits of a wide range of policies impacting wholesale electricity supply. In recent work, he has examined the introduction of financial trading to California’s wholesale electricity market, the phase-out of nuclear power in Germany, the dramatic growth of rooftop solar capacity in Western Australia, and the determinants of electricity blackouts in India.

Areas of Expertise

Energy
Solar Energy
Wholesale Electricity Supply
Environmental Economics
Industrial Organization
Economic Modeling
Nuclear Power
Blackouts

Media Appearances

Coal-fired generating capacity is likely to keep declining, despite the President's order boosting coal

Marketplace  online

2025-04-18

Trump's recent executive orders are designed to make coal easier to use. But Akshaya Jha (Heinz College) says it’s not enough to reverse the decline of coal in this country.

View More

How Trump's executive order on coal could impact energy use in the US

ABC News  online

2025-04-10

Trump's quest to conduct a resurgence of coal production and utilization is unlikely, according to energy experts. Akshaya Jha (Heinz College) says coal-fired power plants are aging and require substantial investments, plus natural gas and renewable energy sources have become more cost-effective than coal.

View More

State Department says it will stop publishing global air pollution data

NPR  radio

2025-03-07

Akshaya Jha (Heinz College) was mentioned as a co-author in a study with Deakin University in Australia that found an average 10% drop in air pollutants in cities with air pollution monitors. They found this could save the State Department nearly $1,500 per diplomat per year because they are paid a hardship differential (living in conditions worse than the U.S.). Deakin University said the program pays for itself.

View More

Show All +

Social

Industry Expertise

Energy
Education/Learning

Accomplishments

Heinz College Martcia Wade Teaching Award

2023

Winner of the USAEE Young Professional Research Competition

2021

Undergraduate Economics Program Academic Achievement Award

2009

Show All +

Education

Stanford University

Ph.D.

Economics

Carnegie Mellon University

B.S.

Economics and Statistics

Event Appearances

Keeping The Lights On Is Harder Than You Think: President Biden’s Energy Policy

(2022) Trillion Dollar Questions  Heinz College

Articles

Can forward commodity markets improve spot market performance? Evidence from wholesale electricity

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

2023

Forward markets are believed to aggregate information about future spot prices and reduce the cost of producing the commodity. We develop a measure of the extent to which forward and spot prices agree in markets with transaction costs. Using this measure, we show that day-ahead prices better reflect real-time prices at all locations in California’s electricity market after the introduction of financial trading. We then present evidence suggesting that operating costs and input fuel use fell after the introduction of financial trading on days when the nonconvexities inherent to the production and transmission of electricity are especially relevant.

View more

The private and external costs of Germany’s nuclear phase-out

Journal of the European Economic Association

2022

Many countries have phased out nuclear power in response to concerns about nuclear waste and the risk of nuclear accidents. This paper examines the shutdown of more than half of the nuclear production capacity in Germany after the Fukushima accident in 2011. We use hourly data on power plant operations and a machine learning approach to estimate the impacts of the phase-out policy. We find that reductions in nuclear electricity production were offset primarily by increases in coal-fired production and net electricity imports. Our estimates of the social cost of the phase-out range from €3 to €8 billion per year. The majority of this cost comes from the increased mortality risk associated with exposure to the local air pollution emitted when burning fossil fuels

View more

Regulatory Induced Risk Aversion in Coal Contracting at US Power Plants: Implications for Environmental Policy

Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

2022

Seminal work argues that electric utilities sign long-term contracts with coal suppliers prior to making relationship-specific investments in order to avoid the possibility of ex post hold-up. This paper provides empirical evidence that risk aversion also plays an important role in the coal contracting behavior of US power plants. Specifically, I show that plants facing more spot coal price uncertainty sign longer duration coal contracts, purchase contract coal from a larger number of origin counties, and pay higher contract coal prices. One plausible mechanism for this risk aversion is that regulators are less likely to incorporate high input cost realizations into the regulated output price they set for electric utilities.

View more

Show All +