Mining and Economic Development : Did China's WTO Accession Affect African Local Economic Development?
This paper investigates China's influence on local economic development in 37 African countries between 1997 and 2007. The analysis compares the average changes in economic growth, migration, spatial inequality, and welfare for mineral-rich di...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/414931480967981511/Mining-and-economic-development-did-Chinas-WTO-accession-affect-African-local-economic-development http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25805 |
| Summary: | This paper investigates China's
influence on local economic development in 37 African
countries between 1997 and 2007. The analysis compares the
average changes in economic growth, migration, spatial
inequality, and welfare for mineral-rich districts, pre- and
post-accession, to the corresponding changes in districts
without any mineral endowment. Using this exogenous
variation, the paper shows that over 2002-07, mining
activities in response to the global commodity price boom
increased welfare as measured by spatial Sen Index but were
insignificant for local economic growth, migration, and
spatial inequality. The findings suggest that policy needs
to do more to improve the local benefits of positive
external shocks (such as China's World Trade
Organization accession): it is not enough to assume, given
Africa's high spatial inequality, that local economies
will automatically benefit from higher national growth. |
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