Conference Agenda

Taking a comprehensive dataset from 2007 to 2020 of Chinese listed companies as the research sample, this paper assesses whether environmental penalties and environmental information disclosure (EID) affect the firm’s risk premiums. We provide evidence that the environmental penalties can have significantly positive effects on firm’s risk premiums. In contrast, EID exhibits negative effects on firm’s risk premiums. The impacts of environmental penalties and EID are more prominent for firms with political connections, indicating that political connection can no longer be the protection of corporate irresponsible environmental behaviors. Moreover, we notice that the regulation effects exhibit insignificant differences between heavily polluted firms and non-heavily polluted firms. Our economic mechanism analyses show that environmental penalties will lead to higher risk premiums due to environmental compliance costs and financing constraints. However, EID can alleviate the information asymmetry between firms and investors and provide better financing environment, thus decreasing the risk premiums. Overall, our empirical results indicate that China’s environmental regulations are playing an important role in affecting the risk premiums, which are in general in line with the interpretation that investors are demanding compensation for their exposure to environmental risk.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is exemplary of the resource curse, as mineral wealth is not used for economic development but reportedly exploited by armed groups in order to finance conflict. Mineral extraction at artisinal mines is assumed to play a key role in this process, while other parts of the supply chain remain overlooked. In this paper, I investigate the distinct impact of mineral trade, in addition to mineral extraction, on conflict dynamics. Using novel geocoded panel data from 2015 to 2022 in the DRC’s Kivu provinces, I show that an increase in world mineral prices is positively linked to conflict in grid-cells with trade routes. I find a negative effect for cells containing mining sites. These findings are consistent with greed motives where armed groups strategically protect mineral rents to ensure long-term survival near mines, while mineral trade serves as an attractive target for predation. Finally, I show that mineral trade appears to finance rebel activities, enabling rebel groups to instigate conflict well beyond the boundaries of their territories

Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM) of gold and diamond is estimated to employ almost 500,000 individuals in Liberia and Sierra Leone (LEITI, 2015; Hilson, 2016). This paper explores the sector’s role as a driver of shifting occupational structures in both countries. We exploit the sharp increase in the global price of gold and households’ proximity to artisanal gold mines to measure the latter’s impact on local labour market outcomes. In the midst of the gold boom, gold-mining areas exhibit a significantly larger decrease in the importance of agriculture alongside an increase in the likelihood of individuals working in services. We distinguish the relatively recent effects of artisanal gold mining from the persistent traces of diamond mines. In addition to effects at the individual level, proximity to an artisanal gold mine is associated with an increase in the share of couples exiting the agricultural sector altogether. We show that gold-proximate households branch out to or specialise entirely in services and sales work with a significantly greater probability than elsewhere.

There is no known safe level of lead pollution exposure. Many countries have taken steps in the last half century to remove lead from their environments, but, at times, these policies can cause pollution sources to shift to countries with weaker regulatory environments. Previous studies have theorized about and empirically documented this `pollution haven' phenomenon, but few have examined the costs borne by recipient communities. In the setting we study, a 2009 tightening of environmental standards in the United States caused used lead-acid battery recycling, an industry that emits large amounts of lead pollution, to shift to Mexico. We estimate the effects of this increased industrial activity and associated pollution on student learning in recipient communities in Mexico. We use data from a nationwide test in Spanish and math, conducted from 2006 to 2013. We compare test scores before and after the 2009 U.S. policy change among students attending schools near and downwind of Mexican recycling facilities and those studying farther away. We estimate effects on test scores of negative 0.05-0.09 standard deviations, with effects being slightly stronger for math than Spanish. Comparing dynamic effects across grades, we find suggestive evidence that effects are stronger for students who were younger in 2009. We also compare effects across communities, showing that the costs to education are heavily concentrated in communities that were already worse off before the 2009 change in lead-acid battery recycling activity. The results of our study underline the importance of considering unintended consequences and cross-border spillovers when regulating toxic pollutants. The heterogeneity of effects across communities highlights the need for more research on the costs of lead pollution exposure in low- and middle-income countries, where the vast majority of exposure occurs today.