We study the economic implications of mineral resource activity for non-mining regions at the grid-level across the African continent. We find that capital cities benefit from mineral resource activity anywhere in the country. Leaders’ birth regions also benefit, but only in autocratic...

This piece explores the strain in African mining as at 2011 caused by the latest bout of “resource nationalism” whereby many countries sought to reverse the liberal mining regimes the World Bank and mining companies pressured cash-strapped governments to adopt in the early and mid-1990s...