Mining, Economic Activity and Remote Sensing : Case studies from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Tanzania

Publication Type:

paper-conference

Date Issued:

2015

Authors:

Magnus Andersson , Ola Hall , Niklas Olén

Publisher:

The Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Department of Economics at Oxford University

Language:

eng

We apply a novel analytical framework based on medium resolution satellite data for the period 2001 – 2012 to estimate the effects of gold mining on agricultural production in Ghana, Mali, Tanzania and Burkina Faso. Our analysis finds a strong correlation between official statistics of agricultural production and vegetation index from satellite data at district level in these countries. Agricultural productivity as proxied by greenness index (NDVI) does not decrease in the proximity of large scale gold mines. Our empirical estimations show that economic activity as proxied by night lights, increase in the proximity of mining but the estimates remains statistically insignificant.