Extractive industries and poverty: A review of recent findings and linkage mechanisms

• We review 52 empirical studies of possible linkages between extractive industries and poverty.
• We find studies of industrial mining more frequently associated with poverty exacerbation, and artisanal mining with poverty reduction.
• We find scales of analysis to matter, with cross-national and sub-national studies often overlooking artisanal mining and the multiple dimensions of poverty.
• We discuss thirteen specific arguments linking extractive industries and poverty articulated in these studies.
• We suggest opportunities for more context-driven and systematic mixed-methods research on extractive industries and poverty.

This article surveys fifty-two empirical studies on relationships between extractive industries and poverty, addressing both poverty impacts and possible linkage mechanisms. Distinguishing these studies by mode of resource extraction, we find industrial mining to be more frequently associated with poverty exacerbation, and artisanal mining with poverty reduction. Poverty exacerbation findings are more pronounced in cross-national statistical studies and ethnographic local case studies, especially when relative deprivation and longer-term impacts are taken into account; while sub-national census-based studies tend to show lower poverty levels in areas with extractive sector activities. A review of thirteen specific linkages between extractive industries and poverty highlights the importance of governance institutions and the limited effects of Corporate Social Responsibility activities. Methodologically, our survey points to the dominance of industrial mining-related data in cross-national and sub-national studies and the overlooked effects of artisanal and small-scale mining on poverty reduction at analytical scales larger than community-level. Such findings call for integrated studies assessing effects on poverty at various scales and attending to the specificities of mining-related livelihoods. Nested mixed-methods including place-based ethnographic observation, longitudinal surveys, as well as socioeconomic and political analysis across multiple scales are needed to provide more robust contextual understandings of the relationships between extractive sectors and poverty.