Abstract
This paper estimates the local effects of gold mining on human capital formation in contexts where small-scale illegal mining is prevalent. Evidence is based on detailed geographic information on mining and school administrative records from Colombia. Measurement error and potential endogeneity problems are addressed by instrumenting mining measures with the interaction between gold prices and deposits. Our main results indicate that mining can affect schooling both at the extensive and intensive margin. Mining increases enrollment and dropout rates in primary school. At the secondary level, mining reduces retention and test scores. The impact is consistently larger when illegal mining is accounted for. While there are few effects on child labor, violence appears to be one of the main mechanism through which mining affects human capital accumulation.
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Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía es investigador Junior del Centro de Estudios Económicos Regionales (CEER) del Banco de la República. Estudió Economía en la Universidad Nacional de Colombia y obtuvo el título de Doctor en Economía en la Universidad de Illinois. Sus principales áreas de investigación son desarrollo económico y educación. Más generalmente, le interesa contribuir al diseño y la implementación de políticas públicas más efectivas.