Adrian Poignant
I am currently a researcher in the Department of Economics at the University of Gothenburg. I completed my PhD in Economics at the University of Uppsala in 2022. My research is in Development Economics and Labor Economics.
I use applied micro-econometric approaches to study topics related to labor markets, infrastructure, agriculture and natural resources in developing countries today and in a historical context.
Publications
Small-scale mining and agriculture: Evidence from northwestern Tanzania (Resources Policy, 2023)
The rapid expansion of small-scale mining (ASM) in sub-Saharan Africa has raised significant concerns about its impact on the local economy. While ASM has the potential to raise incomes and mobilize investments, ultimately benefiting existing agricultural activities and livelihoods, it may also have adverse effects on local farming communities. This paper examines the impact of small-scale gold mining on the agricultural production decisions of 965 rural households in northwestern Tanzania between 2008 and 2012. Contrary to the expectation of positive investment spillovers from ASM to smallholder agriculture, I find that farmer households tend to allocate fewer resources to agriculture and produce less output when small-scale gold mining sites emerge nearby. However, I also find suggestive evidence that exposure to small-scale gold mining leads to an increase in household consumption, while producing no evidence of adverse schooling or child health effects. This implies that small-scale mining can play an important role in alleviating rural poverty in the short- to medium-run.
Working Papers
The Effects of Worker Displacement During the Industrial Revolution: Evidence from Sweden (with Raoul van Maarseveen and Niklas Bengtsson).
We combine a novel data source on the 19th-century Swedish iron industry with linked census data to study the consequences of worker displacement during the second industrial revolution. Ironworkers displaced by the industrial transformation exited the iron industry at higher rates, were more likely to migrate internally, and ended up in occupations that paid 10% less compared to non-displaced workers. While the displacement effects persist over time for workers, we find no evidence of spillovers on their children. To our knowledge, this paper is the first to quantify the effects of worker displacement during the second industrial revolution.
The Effects of Electricity on Female Employment: Evidence from Tajikistan's Winter Energy Crisis
How does electricity provision affect female employment? In theory, electrical household appliances can save labor in domestic production and divert it to the market. However, the empirical evidence has been inconclusive. Many studies from contemporary rural electrification projects face difficulties with bundled infrastructure, and cannot account for variation in the quality of supply. In this paper, I study how Tajik women responded to a five-year-long "winter energy crisis" resulting from the break-down of Tajik-Uzbek electricity trade in late 2009, that reduced winter-time electricity access to a few hours per day. I produce reduced-form evidence that an intensive margin reduction in electricity access leads to lower female employment, as women exit the labor force to become homemakers. The effect is specific to women and does not appear to be driven by changes in labor demand, involuntary unemployment, labor migration or fertility. However, the employment effect is accompanied by lower adoption of labor-saving electrical appliances. These results suggest that electricity provision plays an important role in facilitating the release of female labor from unpaid domestic work in developing countries. Furthermore, the findings emphasize that the quality of electricity supply is critical for unlocking the full benefits of electrification.