Maghfira Ramadhani (Afi)

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

I will be on the 2026-2027 academic job market.

I am an applied microeconomist interested in policy-relevant issues in energy and environmental economics. My research aims to understand the impacts of climate change, environmental risks, and the energy transition on firm and individual behavior. Using economic theory, econometric methods, and large-scale micro-datasets, I evaluate the roles of policy, technology, and adaptation in addressing these challenges.

My current work examines how emerging technologies and policies reshape market dynamics and consumer behavior. In my job market paper, I estimate how battery storage entry affects the market power of incumbent natural gas generators. I also study (i) how smart thermostat automation improves conservation during grid emergencies, and (ii) how individuals adjust their behavior to avoid pollution using physical activity data from wearable devices.

Before my PhD, I served as an adjunct faculty member at the Institut Teknologi Bandung, teaching energy economics and policy. I concurrently advised the West Java Governor’s Office, the upstream oil and gas regulator, several state-owned energy enterprises, and private companies through a series of consulting projects.

CV

Google Scholar
GitHub

Contact

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

Job Market Paper

Battery Storage and Natural Gas Generator Market Power

Draft coming soon

Received Best Fourth Year Paper at Georgia Tech
Scheduled for presentation at AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting 2027

Working Papers

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

(with Soren Anderson, Dylan Brewer)

Email for draft

Received Best Third Year Paper and CRIDC Award at Georgia Tech
Presented at AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting 2026, AERE@SEA 2025, AERE Summer Conference 2025, AERE@MEA 2025, CRIDC@Georgia Tech 2025, EMEE 2025, CU Environmental and Resource Economics Workshop 2024​, SWEEEP@Georgia Tech 2024

Abstract (click to expand): We study the interaction between moral suasion and automation in managing resource scarcity. Using data from smart thermostats during a California heatwave, we exploit a natural experiment involving voluntary conservation requests (Flex Alerts) and a statewide emergency phone alert. We document three findings. First, standard moral suasion suffers from rapid habituation. Second, high-salience signals (emergency alerts) reverse this habituation. Third, and most importantly, we identify a novel complementarity between salience and automation. High-salience alerts reduce the rate at which users override automated thermostat adjustments, tripling the efficacy of demand response technology. These results suggest that 'human frictions' limit the scalability of smart technologies, but crisis salience can mitigate these frictions.

Poster (Presented at CRIDC@Georgia Tech 2025)

Publications

Managing Zero-Marginal-Cost, Intermittent Renewable Energy: A Survey of the Engineering, Economic, and Policy Challenges

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

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (2026)

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 the dual problems of zero-marginal-cost generation and 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 and highlight important implications for energy policies designed to promote growth and spur innovation in the renewable energy sector. We argue that the engineering, economic, and policy aspects of managing zero-marginal-cost, intermittent renewable energy cannot be decoupled—these challenges are inexorably linked. Hence, we describe 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.

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

(with Muhammad Ichsan and Matthew Lockwood)

The Extractive Industries and Society (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.

Work in Progress

Pollution, Avoidance Behavior, and Health

(with Bobby Harris)

Scheduled for presentation at APPAM 2026. Presented at AERE@SEA 2025, ASHEcon 2025, Atlanta Economics PhD Student Symposium 2025, AERE Summer Conference 2025

Academic Presentations

2027: AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting (Washington, DC)

2026: AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting (Philadelphia, PA), Georgia Tech Energy Day, APPAM Fall Research Conference (Boston, MA)

2025: AERE@SEA (Tampa, FL), Atlanta Economics PhD Student Symposium (Atlanta, GA), AERE Summer Conference (Albuquerque, NM), 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 EPICenter (Atlanta, GA)

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

Teaching

My commitment to teaching is deeply rooted in my personal experience; I have seen firsthand, since my earliest schooling, how great teaching transforms lives, including my own. My teaching experience spans both undergraduate and graduate levels in both the U.S. and Indonesia.

Teaching Experience

• Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Georgia Tech Center for Teaching and Learning
  • Instructor of Record: Statistics for Economists (Fall 2025) [Course Website] [Teaching Evaluation (email for access)]
  • Guest Lecturer: PhD Environmental Economics (Spring 2025)
  • Head TA:
    • PhD Econometrics II (Spring 2026)
    • PhD Environmental Economics (Spring 2025)
    • Environmental Economics (Spring 2025,2026, Summer 2023,2024)
    • International Economics (Spring 2023)
    • Math for Economists (Spring 2023,2024)
    • Energy Economics (Fall 2023)
    • Advanced Microeconomics (Fall 2023)
    • Econometric Analysis (Fall 2022)
    • Statistics for Economists (Fall 2024)
• Institut Teknologi Bandung
  • Instructor: Energy Economics (2017-2022)
  • Head TA:
    • Master-level Energy Policy (2017-2022)
    • Optimization & Operations Research (2017)

Miscellaneous

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