Unintended Consequences of Sanctions for Human Rights: Conflict Minerals and Infant Mortality
研究了美国2010年《多德-弗兰克法案》中冲突矿产条款对刚果民主共和国婴儿死亡率的影响，发现该政策使目标矿区附近村庄的婴儿死亡概率至少增加143%，可能通过减少母亲对婴儿保健商品和服务的消费实现。
Are victims of human rights abuses better off with or without economic sanctions targeted at their perpetrators? We study this question in the context of a US human rights policy, the conflict-minerals section of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. By discouraging companies from sourcing tin, tungsten, and tantalum from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the policy has acted as a de facto boycott on mineral purchases that may finance warlords and armed militias. We estimate the policy’s impact on the mortality of children born before 2013 and find that it increased the probability of infant deaths in villages near the policy-targeted mines by at least 143 percent. We find suggestive evidence that the legislation-induced boycott did so by reducing mothers’ consumption of infant health care goods and services.