Phasing-out the use of mercury in artisanal gold mining in Colombia:A framed field experiment

The application of conventional practices such as mercury amalgamation makes small-scale gold mining an economic activity with a high negative impact on health and the environment. Associative entrepreneurship has been proposed as a scheme that would bring cleaner technologies to miners, in order to phase out the use of mercury in the gold recovery process and to reduce the harmful effects of using this element. In this paper we investigate the extent to which miners can establish and sustain an association that aims to fulfill these goals. This is done by conducting a framed threshold public-good experiment with artisanal and small-scale gold miners in Antioquia, Colombia. We test the effect of two different institutional arrangements on associative entrepreneurship: exclusion and co-management. We found that miners made contributions that did not allow a sustained acquisition of the technology. However, we found that under co-management, players could achieve long-lasting and efficient levels of individual contribution; but, conversely, exclusion did not trigger this kind of collective action. Policy implications of our results and avenues for further experimental research are discussed.