Extractive fiscal governance and subnational SDG progress: a systemic analysis of mining canon redistribution in Peru, 2012–2024

Medrano-Sanchez E.J.; Mamani-Salinas A. · Frontiers in Political Science (2026) · DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2026.1863029

Resumen

Mining-dependent economies have placed extractive fiscal transfers at the center of their redistributive strategy for advancing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) at the subnational level. This study examines whether mining canon and royalty transfers effectively contribute to reducing regional monetary poverty in Peru over the period 2012–2024, as an empirical approximation of progress toward SDG 1 and SDG 10. Using an individual fixed-effects panel model applied to 23 regions and 299 observations, we estimate the association between canon transfers and poverty incidence across three analytical dimensions: territorial, temporal, and productive. Results show that canon transfers have a consistent negative direction on poverty across all estimated specifications, but do not reach statistical significance in any of them (β = −0.074, p = 0.530 with robust standard errors), indicating that the mechanism is not associated with a demonstrable redistributive outcome under the institutional and volatility conditions of the analyzed period. However, this null effect is not uniform: in the territorial dimension, the impact is eight times larger in high mining-intensity regions than in low-intensity ones, revealing a structural redistributive asymmetry; in the temporal dimension, the only significant effect emerges in the moderate-price subperiod 2017–2019 (β = −0.487, p = 0.016), suggesting that transfer stability matters more than volume; and in the productive dimension, formal mining employment is positively associated with regional poverty (β = +0.930, p = 0.070), confirming the extractive enclave logic. Taken together, these findings support the subnational resource curse hypothesis and call into question the capacity of the canon system as a redistributive governance instrument aligned with the targets of SDGs 1, 10, 16, and 17. Copyright

Instituciones: Universidad Tecnológica del Perú