Maghfira (Afi) Ramadhani

Welcome to my personal website! I am a PhD student at Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Economics.

My research interests are energy and environmental economics, applied microeconomics, and empirical industrial organization. My existing work focuses on how households and firms respond to the broad impact of climate change and the energy transition.

Before starting my PhD, I worked as an academic professional at Institute of Technology Bandung and as an expert consultant for various energy and environmental policy think tanks in Indonesia.

CV (Updated March 2025)

My Google Scholar
My GitHub

Contact

Email: maghfira.ramadhani@gatech.edu
Office Hours: Sign up here: Book a time with me

Publications

National oil companies and fossil fuel subsidy regimes in transition: The case of Indonesia

(with Muchammad Ichsan and Matthew Lockwood)

The Extractive Industries and Society, September 2022

Abstract (click to expand): It has long been recognised that national oil companies (NOCs) offer the means for funding and delivering fuel subsidies as a politically valuable good. But what happens when the oil begins to run out? Fiscal pressures will clearly increase, but there is also evidence that net importers with NOCs are still more likely to have subsidies than those without. A key question about countries moving through this transition is therefore whether and how the role of NOCs in the subsidy regime changes as the classic logic erodes. We examine these issues in a detailed case study of Indonesia, which became a net oil importer in the early 2000s. A series of partial reforms of FFS has followed, but subsidies remain and the NOC still plays a central role in their delivery. We find that certain functions of the NOC, such as obfuscating the fiscal cost of subsidies, have eroded. But increasing fiscal pressure has not so far overcome the political lock-in of subsidies and institutional inertia in the role of the NOC. Fundamental reform remains unlikely in the short term, but separating the upstream and downstream businesses of the NOC and changing its governance could help support that reform.

Working Papers

Managing Intermittent Renewable Energy: Review and Synthesis of the Engineering, Economics, and Policy

(with Daniel Matisoff, Matthew Oliver, Santiago Grijalva, Oliver Chapman, and Amanda West)

Submitted

Abstract (click to expand): The integration of renewable generation such as solar and wind is crucial to achieving decarbonization objectives. This paper provides a survey of engineering, economics, and policy challenges associated with this integration, focusing primarily on generation intermittency. From the engineering perspective, we describe challenges in the operation and planning stages of electric power systems faced with increasing renewable penetration. We review the economic challenges for restructured electricity markets posed by the dual problems of zero-marginal-cost generation and intermittency. We highlight important implications for energy policies designed to promote growth and spur innovation in the renewable energy sector. Of crucial importance is that the engineering, economic, and policy aspects of managing intermittent renewable energy cannot be decoupled---these challenges are inexorably linked. Hence, we present a synthesis describing how these three fields must work together to understand the key interactions that will make the transition to a low-carbon energy landscape a success.

Work in Progress

Digital Dispatch and Demand Response in Grid Emergencies: Evidence from Household Cooling in California's Flex Alerts

(with Dylan Brewer)

Email for draft

Scheduled for presentation at AERE@MEA 2025 and AERE Summer 2025. Presented at CRIDC@Georgia Tech 2025, EMEE 2025, CU Environmental and Resource Economics Workshop 2024​, SWEEEP@Georgia Tech 2024

Poster (Award at CRIDC@Georgia Tech 2025)

Ambient Air Quality, Avoidance Behavior, and Sleep

(with Bobby Harris)

Scheduled for presentation at AERE Summer 2025

Academic Presentations

2025: Georgia Tech CRIDC (Atlanta, GA), Empirical Methods in Energy Economics Workshop (Washington, DC)

2024: Southeastern Workshop on Energy & Environmental Economics & Policy (Atlanta, GA), CU Environmental and Resource Economics Workshop (Vail, CO), Georgia Tech Energy Policy and Innovation Center (EPICenter) (Atlanta, GA)

2022: South East Asia Energy Transition Partnership - Roundtables Executive Training, Australian National University (Virtual)

Miscellaneous

Website: This website is adapted from Gautam Rao’s website, which is publicly available on his Github.