The Distributional Impact of Large Dams: Evidence from Cropland Productivity in Africa

Eric Albert Strobl ()

No 09-043.RS, Working Papers CEB from Université Libre de Bruxelles, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Centre Emile Bernheim (CEB)

Abstract: We examine the distributional impact of large dams on cropland productivity in Africa. As our unit of analysis we use a scientifically based spatial breakdown of the continent that allows one to exactly define regions in terms of their upstream/downstream relationship at a highly disaggregated level. We then use satellite data to derive measures of cropland productivity within these areas. Our econometric analysis shows that while regions downstream benefit from large dams, cropland within the vicinity tends to suffer productivity losses during droughts. Overall our results suggest that because of rainfall shortages dams caused a net loss of 0.96 percent in production in Africa over our sample period (1981-2000). However, further dam construction in appropriate areas could potentially lead to large increases in cropland production even if rainfall is not plenty.

Keywords: dams; agricultural productivity; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O20 Q19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-eff
Date: 2009-10

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.solvay.edu/EN/Research/Bernheim/documents/wp09043.pdf First version, 2009 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sol:wpaper:09-043

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers CEB from Université Libre de Bruxelles, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Centre Emile Bernheim (CEB)
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by CEB ().