Sharp gradient estimates and monotonicity in positive Ricci curvature

We prove a sharp gradient estimate for the natural Green function of a closed manifold with positive Ricci curvature. We also show that this estimate is closely related to a family of monotonicity formulae. These results extend those previously obtained by Colding and Minicozzi for open manifolds with non-negative Ricci curvature. We further obtain several geometric applications, including a new proof of Bishop’s volume comparison theorem in dimension four.