1. travel
2. tourist destinations
3. africa

Anja Tolonen
PhD Candidate
Home Address:
Office:
5454 S Shore Dr. Apt. 818
Chicago, IL, 60615
USA
Cell Phone: +1-510 229 8944
Department of Economics
University of Gothenburg
Vasagatan 1, Box 640
SE 405 30 Gothenburg
Phone: +46-(0)31 786 1264
E-mail: [email protected]
Web page: www.anjatolonen.com
Citizenship: Swedish
Fields of Concentration:
Development Economics
Labor Economics
Health Economics
Resource Economics
Desired Teaching:
Development Economics
Labor Economics
Health Economics
Resource Economics
Dissertation Title: Mining Booms in Africa and Local Welfare Effects: Labor markets, Female
Empowerment and Criminality
Expected Completion Date: May 2015
Graduate Studies:
University of Gothenburg, 2010 to present
Supervisors: Professor Måns Söderbom and Associate Professor Andreea Mitruut
University of California at Berkeley, 2013-2014
Visiting Researcher at Department of Economics
Supervisor: Professor Edward Miguel
University of Oxford, 2012-2013
Visiting DPhil Student in Economics at Department of Economics
Supervisors: Professor Francis Teal and Associate Professor James Fenske
Affiliations: Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Research Rich Economies,
Center for the Study of African Economies
Undergraduate Studies: Master of Science in Economics, University of Gothenburg, 2010
Fellowships, Honors and Awards:
UNRISD Young Scholar Think Piece Series: Extractive Industries, 2014
Siamon Stiftelsen Travel Grant, 2014
Bo Samuelson’s Graduate Exchange Stipend to UC Berkeley, 2013
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The Hedelius Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies at Foreign Universities, 2012
ISEO Summerschool Travel Grant, 2010, 2013
Lars Hjerta Research Support for Mineral Mining in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2012
Adlerbertska Stipendiestiftelsen Travel Grants, 2012, 2014
Paul och Marie Berghaus donationsfond Travel Grant, 2012, 2013, 2014
Research Experience:
Short Term Consultant, The World Bank Group, The Research Group: Trade and International
Integration. 2014.
Short Term Consultant, The World Bank Group, The Office of the Chief Economist for Africa.
2014. Report: The Socio-economic Impact of Gold Mining in Ghana: Evidence from the Third
Gold Rush
Teaching Experience:
Lecturer, Transparency Initiatives in Economics (PhD level), 2014
Visiting Lecturer, Econ 98/198: Natural Resource Conflicts and Corporate Social Responsibility
(Undergraduate level), at UC Berkeley, Course Facilitator Professor Edward Miguel, 2014
Teaching Assistant, International Economics (Undergraduate level), 2014
Teaching Assistant, Macroeconomics (Undergraduate level), 2013
Teaching Assistant, Microeconomics (Undergraduate level), 2012
Papers:
“Local Industrial Shocks, Female Empowerment and Infant Health: Evidence from Africa’s Gold
Mining Industry” [job market paper]
“African Mining, Gender and Local Employment” (with Andreas Kotsadam), OxCarre Research
Paper 114. University of Oxford, 2013.
Works in Progress:
“Criminality and Mining: Evidence from South Africa” (with Sebastian Axbard and Jonas
Poulsen) [third dissertation chapter]
“Restrictions to Mobility and Access to Health Care: Evidence from the West Bank” (with Caglar
Ozden, Bob Rijkers and Roy van der Weide)
“The Socio-economic Impact of Gold Mining in Ghana: Evidence from the Third Gold Rush”
(with Andreas Kotsadam)
Conference and Seminar Presentations:
Northeastern Universities Development Consortium Conference, Boston, 2014, Planned
Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, 2014, Planned
9th IZA/WB Conference on Employment and Development, Lima, 2014
Workshop for socioeconomic impact of mining in Africa, The World Bank, 2014
Agriculture and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, 2014
Women in Economics, UC Berkeley, 2014
Centre for the Study of African Economies Conference, University of Oxford, 2014
Pacific Development, UCLA, 2014
Economics Department, UC Berkeley, 2014
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Working Group for African Political Economy, UC Berkeley, 2013
Northeastern Universities Development Consortium Conference, Harvard, 2013
Occasional California Workshop in Environmental and Resource Economics, Santa Barbara, 2013
European Economic Association (EEA) Conference, Gothenburg, 2013
International Sustainable Development Research Conference 19, Stellenbosch, 2013
ISEO Summerschool. Selected Student Presenter with Nobel Prize Laureate Professor D.
Mortensen as discussant, 2013
World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, The World Bank, 2013
Centre for the Study of African Economies Conference, University of Oxford, 2013
Gorman Student Research Workshops in Economics, University of Oxford. 2012
Postdoctoral & DPhil Research Workshops, University of Oxford, 2012
Professional Affiliations:
Oxford Center for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economics (OxCarre), External Researcher
American Economic Association (AEA)
European Economic Association (EEA)
Women in Economics (WinE)
Languages:
Swedish (native), English (fluent), French (fluent), Spanish (proficient)
Other activities:
President of the Graduate Student Association, Department of Economics, University of
Gothenburg. 2010-2012.
References:
Professor Edward Miguel
Department of Economics
University of California, Berkeley
530 Evans Hall #3880
Berkeley, Ca 94720, USA
Email: [email protected]
Professor Måns Söderbom
Department of Economics
University of Gothenburg
Box 640,
405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
Email: [email protected]
Associate Professor James Fenske
University of Oxford
Department of Economics
Manor Road Building
Oxford, OX1 3UQ, UK
Email: [email protected]
Dissertation Abstract
Africa’s opportunities are being transformed by new discoveries of natural resources and their rising
prices (Collier, 2010), and the mining sector is the main recipient of foreign direct investment in SubSaharan Africa (World Bank, 2011). Whether the discovery of natural resources is a blessing or a curse
to a country’s citizens is a contentious issue, and natural resource dependence has been linked to
negative outcomes at the national level such as conflict, elite capture of rents (see van der Ploeg, 2011
for an overview), and low female labor force participation (Ross, 2008).
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While the country-level economic and political effects of natural resources are well explored, the
research on their local economic effects is only nascent. Traditionally, it has been assumed that
extractive industries have few or no economic linkages to the local economy in which they operate. This
widely-held belief continues to inform policy on mineral mining in many parts of the world, despite
limited supporting empirical evidence. One of the few empirical investigations available supports this
hypothesis in absence of policies for local procurement of goods, examining the impact of one large
mine in Peru (Aragón and Rud, 2013), though whether this translates to a more general setting is not
understood.
My dissertation “Mining Booms in Africa and Local Welfare Effects: Labor markets, Female
Empowerment and Criminality”, explores the effects of large scale mining in three related but
independent chapters. The first Chapter analyzes labor market effects across the African continent,
Chapter two focuses on women’s empowerment and infant health in gold mining communities in West
and East Africa, and Chapter three explores the links between criminality and mining in South Africa. I
use quasi-experimental research designs, with an eye towards identifying causality using large
household survey data sets and official data sources. Additionally, I use Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) to explore whether and how effects are distributed spatially.
In Chapter One, African Mining, Gender and Local Employment (joint with Andreas Kotsadam), we
perform the first cross-national study testing these hypotheses with micro-data. It is a contentious issue
whether large scale mining creates local employment, and the sector has been accused of hurting
women's labor supply and economic opportunities. This paper uses the rapid expansion of mining in
Sub-Saharan Africa to analyse local structural shifts and the role of gender. We match 109 openings and
84 closings of industrial mines to survey data for 800,000 individuals and exploit the spatial-temporal
variation. With mine opening, women living within 20 km of a mine switch from self-employment in
agriculture to working in services or they leave the work force. Men switch from agriculture to skilled
manual labor. Effects are stronger in years of high world prices. Mining creates local boom-bust
economies in Africa, with permanent effects on women's labor market participation.
In Chapter Two (my job market paper), Local Industrial Shocks, Female Empowerment and Infant
Health: Evidence from Africa's Gold Mining Industry, I explore if industrial development bring
women's empowerment in developing countries. This is the first paper to causally explore the effects of
a continent wide establishment of an industry on female empowerment and infant health. I use the recent
rapid expansion in gold mining in Africa as a quasi-experiment. The identification strategy relies on
temporal (before and after mine opening) and spatial variation (distance to mine), as well as exogenous
variation in the price of gold. Using a sample of 56,000 women and 48,000 children living within 100km
from a mine, I show that the establishment of a new mine increases income earning opportunities within
the service sector by 41%, women are 23% less likely to state a barrier to health care access for herself
and women's acceptance of domestic violence decreases by almost 20%. Despite risks of environmental
pollution from gold mining infant mortality more than halves with the mine opening. In particular, girl
infants and children to women in the service sector face better chances of survival. The results are robust
to different assumptions about trends, distance, migration, and withstand a novel spatial randomization
test.
In Chapter Three, Criminality and Mining: Evidence from South Africa, I explore jointly with
Sebastian Axbard and Jonas Poulsen, the links between mining and criminality in South African. South
Africa has a long history of mining, and is plagued by economic and social inequality, and rampant
criminality. We use the opening and closing of mines as a quasi-experiment. In a preliminary district level
analysis, we show that criminality decreases with mining. We hypothesize that the reduction in crime
comes from decreased unemployment and increase in wages, both of which increase the opportunity costs
of crime. These preliminary effects are in contrast to fears that the mining sector links to higher
criminality, through channels such as mine-induced migration and high male to female sex ratios.