1,720,999 research outputs found
Il rapporto fra risorse ambientali come fattori di produzione e benessere in contesti di agenti eterogenei
No full textQuando la crescita economica causa impoverimento: il ruolo dell'accesso alle risorse naturali e del degrado ambientale
No full textExtractive Industries and Local Development in the Peruvian Highlands: Socio-Economic Impacts of the Mid-1990s Mining Boom
Full text linkSince the late Nineties, the mining sector in Peru has been experiencing a protracted period of rapid
growth. This paper investigates local impacts of the mining boom on migration, on access to basic
services, on labour market and on occupational distribution across sectors. By applying propensity
score matching technique, mining and non-mining districts are compared. The results show that recent
mining expansion has encouraged migration inflows to mining districts and affected the sectoral
composition of the labor force in these areas. However, despite the great expectations and the new
institutional and legislative settings, the mining growth has not produced a multiplicative effect on
non-mining and non-agricultural activities and did not boost a process of economic diversification
towards non-primary sector. Finally, the analysis shows a significant heterogeneity in impacts on
labour opportunities and on access to basic services across rural and urban areas, and between districts
with a long history of mining exploitation and new mining areas
Can inflation be a good thing for the poor? Evidence from Ethiopia
No full textIn 2006–08, Ethiopia experienced high food and non-food inflation. This study shows that the
recent inflationary spell is likely to have significantly worsened poverty in urban areas, given
the reliance on the market for most consumption needs. In rural areas the distributive impact of
inflation is less easy to measure. In Ethiopia’s rural areas, many households are net food
buyers, and non-food items weigh significantly in their budgets. Thus, it seems unlikely that
high inflation was beneficial for poverty reduction, a position which seemed to underpin
much of the policy response to the crisis
Biofuel Development and Large-Scale Land Deals in Sub-Saharan Africa
No full textAfrica's biofuel potential over the last ten years has increasingly attracted foreign investors’ attention.
We estimate the determinants of foreign investors land demand for biofuel production in SSA, using
Poisson specifications of the gravity model. Our estimates suggest that land availability, abundance of
water resources and weak land governance are significant determinants of large-scale land acquisitions
for biofuel production. This in turn suggests that this type of investment is mainly resource-seeking
and investors might see land governance weaknesses as a way to access land and water resources at
very favorable conditions. Results are robust to different specifications
Extractive industries and local development in the Peruvian Highlands
No full textDuring the last 20 years, the mining sector in Peru has been experiencing
sustained growth. Using census, administrative, nationally and regionally representative
data we compare districts in the Peruvian Highlands with a recent mining development
with suitable counterfactuals. We find that the new mining activities attract migration
inflows, and have some positive effects over educational indicators, and that these
impacts, on average, are smaller in districts with lower levels of corporate social expenditure.
However, the results of this study suggest that the local potential welfare impact
of the mining boom is largely untapped and corporate social responsibility has had a
limited role in improving this effect
Foreign direct investment in Sub-Saharan Africa : drivers and the challenge of the land-energy nexus
No full textHis paper explores recent patterns of foreign direct investments (FDI) in land in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with the focus on investment in biofuel crops. It describes the drivers and features of this type of investment compared to general FDI trends in developing countries and SSA. The continent is one of the areas most targeted by international land acquisitions, especially for biofuel projects, but Africa’s increasing attractiveness in this sector is not without risks. Our Zero Inflated Poisson estimates for the number of large-scale international land deals in biofuels in Sub-Saharan countries identify land availability and abundance of water resources combined with weak land governance as significant drivers. These findings indirectly suggest that biofuel-oriented FDI in land on the sub-continent are driven by resource-seeking decision
Determinants of biofuel-oriented land acquisitions in Sub-Saharan Africa
No full textThe recent surge of investors' interest for African land has triggered the debate about the drivers and
effects of the so-called land grabbing. After a review of the relationship between investment in land and
biofuel development in Sub Saharan Africa, we contribute to the existing literature in four dimensions.
We use the updated version of Land Matrix whose potentialities are currently underexploited; we
concentrate on land deals for cultivating biofuel crops which are emblematic of the food-land-energy
nexus; we focus on FDI to the African continent, the most targeted region for land grabbing. Finally, we
delve deeper into the influence of institutional quality by testing the role of different institutional
dimensions. We find that abundance of water resources and general business conditions, security and
regulatory quality facilitate the investment in land for biofuels. As for land governance, what matters is
the strength and security of land tenure rights rather than the type of tenure system.
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