Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161524 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2016/141
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
This paper investigates China's influence on local economic development in 37 African countries between 1997 and 2007. We compare the average changes in economic growth, migration, spatial inequality, and welfare of mineral-rich districts, both prior and after China's WTO Accession, to the corresponding changes in districts without any mineral endowment. Using this exogenous variation, we show that during 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. Our findings suggest that policy needs to do more to improve the local benefits of positive external shocks (such as China's WTO Accession): it is not enough to assume, given Africa's high spatial inequality, that local economies will automatically benefit from higher national growth.
Subjects: 
mining
commodity boom
local development
Africa
China
WTO
JEL: 
O13
O55
Q32
Q33
R32
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-185-7
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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