All that Glitters Is not Gold : An Evaluation of the Impact of Fair Trade Standards on Artisanal Gold Miners in Ghana

This paper investigates the impact of Fair Trade standards on the lives of artisanal gold miners in Ghana. In cooperation with ten mining companies - five of which voluntary enrolled in a program to implement these standards and become Fair Trade certified - I evaluated the impact of these standards using a difference-in-difference approach, comparing the respondents that work in the mines where the standards were being implemented over time with respondents that work for control mines. The data were collected during two waves of interviews between 2012 and 2015 - in total over 1900 interviews. I find that the Fair Trade standards have a positive effect on health and human capital investment of the miners. The proportion of miners that get ill or injured decreases by 5 percentage points, whereas school attendance of children in the households of miners in the treated mines increases by 8 percentage points. However, although overall wellbeing appears to increase, I find no significant effects on income