In this paper we examine the impact of natural resource wealth by focusing on historical coal-mining across European regions. As an exogenous source of variation in coal extraction activities, we rely on the presence of coal-deposits located on the earth’s surface, which historically facilitated the discovery and extraction of coal. Our results show that former coal-mining regions are substantially poorer, with (at least) 10% smaller per-capita GDP than comparable regions in the same country that did not mine coal. We provide evidence that much of this lag is explained by lower levels of human capital accumulation and that this human-capital effect is concentrated in men. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that the persistently lower levels of human capital in coal mining regions that we document result from the crystallization of negative attitudes towards education and lower future orientations in these regions.

在本文中，我们通过关注整个欧洲地区的历史煤矿开采来考察自然资源财富的影响。作为煤炭开采活动变化的外源性来源，我们依靠位于地球表面的煤沉积物的存在，从历史上讲，这有利于煤炭的发现和开采。我们的研究结果表明，以前的煤矿开采地区比美国没有开采煤炭的同类地区要贫穷得多，人均GDP至少（至少）降低了10％。我们提供的证据表明，这种滞后的大部分原因是人力资本积累水平较低，而且这种人力资本效应集中在男性身上。最后，