Mining Concessions in Mexico Negatively Affect Already Vulnerable Groups

What is the impact of mining concessions on local communities? Extractive industries have expanded worldwide, with important implications for the livelihoods of exposed individuals and communities. In this paper, I explore how the boom of the mining industry in Mexico from 1990 to 2017 affected thousands of rural communities, known as "ejidos" and "comunidades agrarias". I find that mining corporations tend to locate in communities with relatively fewer economic alternatives and in places more disadvantaged in socioeconomic terms. Moreover, my results show that exposure to a mining concession is associated with a decrease in the levels of economic activity and an increase in land tenure insecurity, dynamics partially driven by the effects of these extractive projects on the size of the local population. The analysis employs satellite imagery, fine-grained administrative data, and a staggered difference-in-differences design to account for the endogenous relationship between mineral extraction and socioeconomic outcomes