Mining policy reform and civil conflict: Evidence from Myanmar☆

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Sandi, Nan
• 署名单位: University of Oxford
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103608
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: Natural resources; minerals; MINING; Extractive policy reform; civil conflict; ETHNICITY

摘要

This paper inverts the standard resource-conflict paradigm by examining how resource contraction, rather than expansion, affects civil violence. Exploiting a 2016 moratorium in Myanmar that halted new mining licenses, I implement a difference-in-differences strategy using a novel spatially disaggregated database linking mining activity with geo-coded conflict events from 2011-2020. The contraction led to a 69% reduction in conflict incidents - particularly violent and fatal events - in previously licensed townships. The effects were stronger in ethnic homelands, poorer areas, and remote regions. Strikingly, the analysis uncovers positive spatial spillovers: conflict also declined in neighboring non-mining areas, suggesting that reduced resource extraction diffuses peace rather than displacing violence. Evidence supports three mechanisms: (1) lower mineral rents constrained armed group financing; (2) labor reallocation to productive sectors increased the opportunity cost of violence; and (3) reduced elite rents mitigated local inequality, dampening grievance-based mobilization.