Non-Financial Incentives for Pro-Social and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

This defense will be presented online only. Join using this link and passcode incentives

ABSTRACT

My dissertation examines how non-financial incentives can promote pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours through three projects based in India. In the first project, I test the relationship between pro-social motivation, monitoring, and preference alignment between principals and agents on agent performance in a multi-task environment. In the second project, I examine gaming behaviour in a government-to-government ranking programme for waste management in India. Specifically, I test for the motivations behind target-shifting by the principal and over-reporting by agent governments. In the third project, I develop a framework for studying energy justice and democracy in the Global South. Using this framework, I study the extent to which elements of energy justice and democracy are included in Indian solar energy policy.

The first project shows that pro-social motivation is an important predictor of performance, especially in public sector organisations. It also shows that motivated employees are likely to perform better when they have a high degree of agency in determining their task environment. The second project shows that government-to-government performance management is highly prone to distortions. Performance management in the public sector can be improved through development-focused interventions as compared to selection-focused performance management such as ranking programmes. The third project demonstrates that Indian solar energy policy has so far missed an opportunity for pursuing a just and democratic energy system transition made possible by solar energy technology.

BIO

Karnamadakala Rahul Sharma is a practitioner and policy researcher from India. Prior to joining Bren for his PhD, he obtained degrees in electrical engineering (from India), Public Policy (University of Minnesota), and was a visiting researcher at Yale University. At Bren, he has been awarded the Regent’s Fellowship and the Bren School Fellowship in Environmental Science and Management. Rahul locates his scholarship broadly in Public Management and Political Science. He has spent over 12 years working in India with NGOs and think-tanks on questions of state capacity, administrative reform, capacity building, energy access and the urban environment. He has authored publications in Science, Nature Energy, Energy for Sustainable Development, Urbanisation, a number of chapters in edited volumes, and was a Lead Author of the UNEP Global Environment Outlook on Cities 2020. He will be returning to research and practice at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi after his defence.