This thesis consists of studies of the economics of mineral resource exploitation and their environmental impact, reported in four papers. Paper I replicates two seminal papers from the early 2000s which indicated that the correlation between genuine savings and future consumption was weaker than theory predicted, at least when genuine savings were measured using the World Bank estimates. The aim of this paper was to examine whether the correlation has become stronger over time, on the back of policy changes in resource-rich countries and of revisions to the World Bank estimates. The results indicate that the correlation between genuine savings and future consumption growth may be stronger for poorer countries than for richer, and for sub-Saharan Africa, the theoretical predictions appear to hold. Paper II estimates resource rents for Mozambican coal mining using company-level data employing the residual value method devised by SEEA-Energy (the multi-purpose conceptual framework for organizing energy related statistics) and compares the findings with the World Bank’s estimates of coal rents. The latter estimates are often used in the resource curse literature and guide the World Bank’s policy notes, forming the baseline of their policy advice on resource exploitation. On average, the results show unit coal rents for the 2011–2020 period that are less than half of the World Bank estimates, suggesting that the World Bank overstates coal rents for Mozambique considerably. The main driver of this discrepancy is the World Bank’s underestimation of extraction costs. The results suggest that studies employing resource rent estimates should consider sensitivity analyses and greater use of local data, and that the World Bank’s policy advice should be interpreted cautiously to avoid unreasonably high expectations. Paper III implements a choice experiment to examine the willingness to pay for improved water supply and forest use currently degraded due to mining activities, with a specific focus on how different household groups near coal mines value these services. The survey sample comprised 419 households in Moatize, Mozambique. Overall, the estimation results obtained via a latent class conditional logit model indicate that four classes of households exist, with different preferences across classes. The main drivers of class membership include gender, income, education and age. All classes express dissatisfaction with the status quo, and improvements in water supply is generally highly valued. However, the four groups in some cases express quite different valuations of the proposed improvements. Development interventions attempting to address the environmental impacts of mining should therefore consider the heterogeneous preferences of the intended beneficiaries, and how experiences from previous interventions are likely to affect attitudes toward new interventions. Paper IV uses the contingent valuation method to estimate displaced and resettled Mozambican households’ willingness to pay to restore the landscape where they used to live before mining began. The study results indicate that on average households are willing to contribute about 9 working days per month. Results further indicate that resettled respondents have been adaptive and used the monetary compensation they were given to buy more productive land to offset the land lost due to resettlement, but still see themselves as worse off compared to before resettlement. A possible explanation is that they now are far away from the marketplaces and the river, making it difficult to develop new income sources and to get access to water. Mitigation interventions and future resettlements should think carefully about the resettlement site selection.