"Shedding light" on the local resource curse in Colombia

We quantify the causal effect that mining has had on wellbeing across counties in Colombia between 2006 and 2013 and formally test the Paradox of Abundance or Resource Curse, i.e. the paradox that countries with an abundance of natural resources tend to be associated with lower growth rates, promotion of authoritarianism and worsening living standard. During this period, described by some authors as ‘mining boom’, international prices and demand for products like coal and oil presented upward trends and the Colombian mining sector grew on average 9.32% per year growing from 59 metrics tonnes export to 89 and from 21 to 49, respectively (EDANE, 2017) We calculate the annual nighttime light intensity average before the boom (2000-2005) and during the boom 2007-20013 (Data: DMSP-OLS) and explore the correlation between proximity to places of extraction and economic performance.