Ugo Rizzo (p), Giacomo Lupi

Zoulfikar Mehoumoud Issop

This study investigates the impact of mine openings in the Sub-Saharan Africa, following the mining boom experience since the Nighties, on the social conditions of local communities near extraction sites. Using satellite imagery and a difference-in-differences approach, we analyse how mineral extraction affects water quality, mainly proxied by turbidity. This research contributes to the existing literature on the environmental consequences of mining, offering new insights into the socio-economic outcomes associated with technological development in a region with immense mineral wealth but lagging improvements in living standards.
Moreover, we hypothesize that changes in water turbidity can serve as an indicator of broader environmental degradation caused by mining activities, providing a valuable tool for environmental monitoring.

Zoulfikar Mehoumoud Issop (p), Yves Croissant, Philippe Randriamasimanjato (p)

Aleksandr Polozun

This study investigates the production structure and inter-sectoral linkages of La Reunion, a French overseas region, using an input-output approach. Given the island’s economic constraints, such as high import dependency, limited industrial diversification, and a dominant public sector, understanding sectoral interconnections is crucial for designing effective economic policies. The study aims to identify key sectors that generate strong economic spillovers, reduce economic leakages, and enhance regional resilience.
Using the 2019 Symmetric Input-Output Table (SIOT) with 61 economic sectors, we apply Rasmussen-Hirschman linkage indices, Leontief multipliers, and the AVIONIC model (developed by INSEE) to:
• Measure sectoral interdependencies, identifying industries that act as economic drivers.
• Assess economic leakages, distinguishing between locally sourced and imported production.
• Quantify multiplier effects, evaluating how changes in demand affect overall economic activity.
The findings indicate that the sectors with the highest multipliers—and therefore the most influential on economic growth—are:
1. Electricity (Multiplier: 3.08)
2. Tourism and Travel Services (Multiplier: 2.69)
3. Real Estate (Multiplier: 2.57)
4. Insurance (Multiplier: 2.27)
These industries exhibit strong backward and forward linkages, meaning investments in these areas stimulate demandacross multiple sectors.
However, certain industries are highly dependent on imports, which limits their local economic impact. The most import-dependent sectors include:
• Oil Refining (90% import reliance)
• Pharmaceuticals (majority imported raw materials)
• Transport Equipment (80% import dependence)
These high-leakage industries fail to generate strong domestic value chains, emphasizing the need for local production capacity.
Policy Recommendations
1. Strengthen Local Supply Chains: Encourage local production for high-leakage industries (e.g., pharmaceuticals, transport, energy).
2. Target Investments in High-Multiplier Sectors: Provide tax incentives and subsidies for electricity, real estate, and tourism to amplify economic spillovers.
3. Reduce Import Dependence: Develop local manufacturing to substitute imports, promote value-added transformation, and enhance domestic resilience.

By prioritizing high-multiplier, low-leakage sectors, policymakers can create a more resilient and self-sufficient economy. Reducing import reliance and enhancing local supply chains will maximize economic growth and foster long-term sustainability for La Reunion.

Aleksandr Polozun (p)

Teemu Makkonen

Urban scholars (Christaller, Lösch) view cities as interconnected hubs exchanging goods, services, and information. From Fujita's to Krugman's work, economic geography highlights the importance of concentration—ideas, innovators, and consumers—for sustaining innovation. High-speed roads link cities, while internal spaces like coworking centers foster local collaboration, enhancing global economic prospects.
Things are quite different in the Remote North, a part of the Russian Arctic and the Far North, which is characterized by conditions of extreme remoteness from the main settlement zone and the sparseness of the network of settlements. Remote cities have worse conditions of development precisely because they fall out of the hierarchical network of settlements. In this paper we will study remote cities in the Far North. So where do cities in the Far North come from?
Far Northern cities emerge near oilfields, but field-based urbanization typically occurs during the 3rd Kondratiev wave, marked by high transportation costs that make local production cheaper than importing goods. However, under rotational development models, such as the Yamburg camp established in 1982, cities are unnecessary for field operations.
Today we are increasingly encountering news and publications about the predominant role of rare earth metals. It is quite common to hear the opinion that rare earth metals are the new oil. Will the active development of these resources have the same multiplicative effect as was boom in gold, oil and gas production?
The study is based on the analysis of population dynamics in the cities of the Russian Far North in connection with the beginning of field development and tests the hypothesis: in modern conditions, the commissioning of a field no longer has a multiplicative effect on the development of a city. It is planned to compare census data on the population of cities in the Far North of the Russian Federation and data on the start of field development taken from the websites of mining companies and Rosgeolfund. In most cases, data from major resource companies such as Gazprom, Rosneft, Lukoil, Novatek, etc., including their subsidiaries, for the period from 1991 to the present will be used.
As a result, we will attempt to answer the question of what can stop or slow the extinction of northern cities and is it true that the era of the frontier is gone from northern territories forever?

Teemu Makkonen (p)

Ugo Rizzo

The Finnish, as well as the global, business environment has recently had to endure one crisis after another (financial crisis of 2008, EU–Russian sanctions due to the Russian invasion of Crimea, Covid-19 pandemic, etc.), the most recent one being the war of aggression launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in 2022. The international community, including Finland, condemned the attack and enforced a series of sanctions against Russia. After a period of serious hybrid influencing carried out by Russia, the Finnish government decided to close the international border crossing stations at the Russian border in December 2023. As a result of the sanctions and border closure, cross-border travel and trade with Russian partners has been strictly limited. The border closure has also led to a seizure in transportation through the Saima channel effectively closing the only viable shipping route from many Finnish inland towns to international markets. The sanctions and the closing of the border has resulted in severe distortion in supply chains of Finnish firms particularly in terms of resources such as forestry and energy imports, in a loss of an important customer group as well as a significant source of foreign tourism income, to accessibility issues to international markets, etc. As such, Finnish firms are undoubtedly affected by the war, but there is an ongoing political debate about the geography of the impacts: are firms closer to the border affected more than the “national average”? Since economists are often more interested in the national rather than local economy, despites some tentative work, the scientific community has yet to provide systematic evidence on the potential regionally varied outcomes of the sanctions and border closure on Finnish firms. Here an attempt is made to formally investigate firm survival in this time of turbulence by utilising regional and sectoral data on firm closure, new firm formation and bankruptcy. A spatial Durbin model is estimated to take into account the geographical distance, contiguity and travel time to the Russian border in order to provide insights whether firms in regions adjacent or close to the border (or firms in certain sectors) are on average affected more than firms in regions further away from the border and closer to international markets.