 The response of illegal mining to revealing its existenceWorking papers from Red Investigadores de Economía Abstract: New monitoring technologies can help curb illegal activities by reducing information asymmetries between enforcing and monitoring government agents. I created a novel dataset using machine learning predictions on satellite imagery that detects illegal mining. Then I disclosed the predictions to government agents to study the response of illegal activity. I randomly assigned municipalities to one of four groups: (1) information to the observer (local government) of potential mine locations in his jurisdiction; (2) information to the enforcer (National government) of potential mine locations; (3) information to both observer and enforcer, and (4) a control group, where I informed no one. The effect of information is relatively similar regardless of who is informed: in treated municipalities, illegal mining is reduced by 11\% in the disclosed locations and surrounding areas. However, when accounting for negative spillovers --- increases in illegal mining in areas not targeted by the information --- the net reduction is only 7\%. These results illustrate the benefits of new technologies for building state capacity and reducing illegal activity. Keywords: Illegal mining; Monitoring Technology; Colombia (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rie:riecdt:89 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working papers from Red Investigadores de Economía Cra 7 # 14-78. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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