Local Labor Markets and Natural Resources: A Synthesis of the Literature

Joseph Marchand and Jeremy Weber

No 2016-10, Working Papers from University of Alberta, Department of Economics

Abstract: A primary way that natural resources affect a locality is through the demand for labor, with greater extraction requiring more workers. Shifts in labor demand can be measured through changes in employment and earnings, the main labor market outcomes, or through changes in the population and income, more generally. These changes may spillover into the non-resource economy, leading to greater overall effects or possibly crowd out; be spread unequally across the population, thereby altering the distribution of income and the poverty rate; or influence educational attainment, as people choose between additional schooling and work. In this review, the literature linking natural resources to local labor markets is synthesized by organizing existing studies according to their resource measurement and the outcomes that they consider. This synthesis provides an accessible guide to a literature that has boomed in recent years. It also identifies promising avenues for future research and lays a foundation to further generalize the evidence through an eventual meta-analysis.

Keywords: local labor markets; natural resources; resource booms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J20 J40 Q23 Q33 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2016-08-05, Revised 2017-01-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-lma and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Journal Article: LOCAL LABOR MARKETS AND NATURAL RESOURCES: A SYNTHESIS OF THE LITERATURE (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:albaec:2016_010

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