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on Mining |
| By: | Yves Jégourel |
| Abstract: | The outbreak of the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have had major consequences for a large number of global commodity markets. While media attention has understandably focused on oil and natural gas, as well as on aluminum – owing to the strong dependence of that metal’s supply on energy prices – sulfur, like helium, ethylene, propylene, or urea, has also been caught up in the fallout of this conflict. Far from being a marginal commodity, it is essential to the production of nickel and copper, as well as of fertilizers. Qatar, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are among the world’s leading sulfur exporters. Against this difficult backdrop, China has banned exports of sulfuric acid in order to safeguard domestic supply – even though it is the world’s leading supplier – while Russia has sharply restricted its sales to countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union since November 1, 2025. Combined with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, these measures have led to a near-doubling of sulfur and acid prices. If the conflict continues, a shortage could have serious consequences worldwide, particularly for food security. As the world’s largest exporter of phosphate fertilizers and, consequently, heavily dependent on this input, Morocco appears directly exposed, despite a diversification of its sulfur imports toward Kazakhstan and a firm strategy of securing/producing the resource domestically across the various stages of the value chain. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:pbcoen:pb51_26_1 |
| By: | Ryan Banerjee; Michael Chui; Leonardo Gambacorta |
| Abstract: | Concentration and limited substitutability can turn the efficiency gains from global supply chains into vulnerabilities. However, the consequences of chokepoints depend on their underlying nature. The rare earths industry illustrates a persistent dependence on concentrated processing capacity. By contrast, flexibility and effective crisis management can speed up recovery from a temporary disruption, as seen in hard disk drive production after the 2011 Thailand floods. Resilience measures should match the vulnerability: alternative capacity and technologies can address persistent dependencies, while inventories, supplier redundancy and geographical flexibility can cushion temporary disruptions. |
| Date: | 2026–10–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:bisblt:139 |
| By: | Emilio Colombi |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the response of income inequality to commodity price shocks and identifies the underlying mechanisms at play. I provide novel cross-country evidence from commodity-exporting nations, showing that positive commodity price shocks reduce labor income inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. This reduction in inequality is primarily driven by a fall in the skill premium, arising from the expansion of unskilled-labor-intensive sectors, such as construction, which grow more rapidly than skilled-labor-intensive ones, such as services. To interpret these results, I develop a quantitative multisector small-open-economy model that incorporates sectoral heterogeneity in both skilled-labor intensity and sensitivity to commodity price shocks. I use the model as a laboratory to explore the distributional impacts of various policy responses to commodity windfalls, demonstrating how saving or spending these gains can either reinforce or moderate the reduction in inequality. This analysis provides new insights into the broader economic and social impacts of commodity price shocks in emerging markets. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy; Real economy and forecasting; Structural challenges; Digitalization and productivity |
| JEL: | E E3 E32 F F4 F41 J J3 J30 Q Q3 Q33 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:26-38 |
| By: | Byungyul Park (Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade) |
| Abstract: | COVER STORY<p> This study empirically analyzes the supply chain structure of Korean firms’ major overseas production bases in Vietnam, Mexico, India, the Philippines, and the United States using bill of lading (B/L) data. The analysis finds that Korean firms’ global supply chains are characterized by a multilayered division of production, in which intermediate inputs are sourced primarily from Korea and China, processed or assembled locally, and then exported to major destination markets such as the United States and China or sold in local markets. Each production base performs a distinct role within this global network.<p> In particular, overseas production bases are becoming increasingly important as key hubs for exports to the United States, while changes in the trade policy environment of host economies may also spill over into Korea’s domestic industrial ecosystem. Accordingly, a multi-pronged policy response is needed that takes into account the entire supply chain, including overseas production bases, and encompasses broader trade policy responses, improvements in trade structures, a stronger domestic production base, and enhanced support systems for Korean firms operating abroad. |
| Keywords: | bill of lading data; B/L data; trade data; trade data analysis; South Korea; overseas production; global supply chains; global value chains; GVCs; GVC analysis |
| JEL: | F14 F23 L23 F13 |
| Date: | 2026–08–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:kieter:023842 |
| By: | de Graaff, Naná; Veselinovič, Jaša; Tyler, A.G. |
| Abstract: | This article investigates the geopolitical dynamics driving Europe’s emerging technological decoupling from China. Focusing on the semiconductor industry and the Dutch semiconductor firm ASML, it examines how technonationalism emanating from the US has shaped a small European member state’s policy response amid intensifying US-China rivalry. The article analyses how national security arguments and US strategic influence aimed at undermining China’s advances in high-tech has reshaped the Dutch semiconductor export control regime in a way that seemingly contradicts both ASML’s corporate interests and Dutch long-term economic interests. Moreover, cutting the dependency ties of China to one of the few chokepoint industries and tech firms in the EU arguably undermines its commitment to ‘technological sovereignty’. We explain these puzzling outcomes through the inherent contradictions within technonationalism and the tensions between state and corporate actors strategizing around different national security and profit-oriented interests. As such, we argue that the case of ASML offers a useful prism through which to study the ongoing ‘geoeconomic’ shift in the global political economy in which the alignment of the geopolitical and capital logics characteristic of neoliberal globalisation is coming apart, with state and corporate actors attempting to realign these logics into different configurations. |
| Date: | 2026–10–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:dgz2h_v1 |
| By: | Natural Resources Conservation Service; Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology, Iowa State University |
| Abstract: | This report presents summary results from the 2022 National Resources Inventory (NRI). The 2022 NRI is the latest in a series of natural resource inventories conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). It provides updated information on the status, condition, and trends of land, soil, water, and related resources on the Nation’s non-Federal lands. Non-Federal lands include privately owned lands, tribal and trust lands, and lands controlled by State and local governments. This report presents national- and state-level estimates from the 2022 NRI for the 48 conterminous states, Hawaii, and the Caribbean territories for basic NRI data themes, including status, changes and trends in land cover/use, irrigation, land capability class and subclass, prime farmland, soil erosion, and wetlands. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Crop Production/Industries, Land Economics/Use, Livestock Production/Industries, Resource/Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usdami:414554 |
| By: | Congressional Budget Office |
| Abstract: | CBO estimates that it would cost about $275 billion (in 2026 dollars) to build 15 of the Navy's new nuclear-powered battleships through 2056. The first ship would cost about $23 billion, and the next 14 ships would average $18 billion.Under the 2027 shipbuilding plan, the average annual funding needed to buy surface combatants would rise from about $11 billion to $19 billion. By 2035, the plan would more than double the tonnage of large surface combatants that shipbuilders would need to produce, which could be a challenge for the shipbuilding industry. |
| JEL: | H56 H60 H68 N62 N72 |
| Date: | 2026–08–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbo:report:62550 |
| By: | Sophia Praetorius |
| Abstract: | How flexible are multinational production networks when assembly technologies are specialized and costly to reconfigure? Using data on the global automotive industry from 2000-2023, I document that production is organized around discrete process technologies (platforms) that constrain where each product can be assembled. Exploiting the 2011 Tohoku earthquake as a quasi-natural experiment, I show that platform compatibility limits firms’ ability to reallocate production after local shocks. Firms overcome this constraint by licensing technologies to each other. I develop and estimate a structural model of multinational production with discrete technology choice and inter-firm licensing. Models abstracting from production technologies overstate the reallocation induced by tariffs and understate the price incidence borne by the tariffing country’s consumers. The model also allows to study policies restricting access to technologies: these can trigger more reallocation than a broad tariff war, with costs concentrated on the firms and locations bound by the affected technologies. |
| Keywords: | multinational production, intern. trade, technology licensing, FDI, trade policy |
| JEL: | F12 F23 L14 L21 L24 L62 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13089 |
| By: | Zoltan Bartha |
| Abstract: | How should a dependent economy respond when a polycrisis turns economic integration from a source of efficiency into a surface of vulnerability? This paper develops the exposure-capability framework, which maps a country's strategic options along two dimensions - the concentration of its external dependence and the depth of its productive capability - and yields four ideal strategies. It applies the framework to Hungary's large-scale bet on electric-vehicle battery manufacturing, asking what the concentrated exposure purchased: movement toward a higher position in the battery value chain, as a catch-up gamble, or the reproduction of the country's existing position under a new product, as dependent entrenchment. Using a firm-level panel of Hungary's largest companies for 2010-2024, it tests four hypotheses and examines the conditions attached to the support that financed the investments. The sector has expanded enormously, but its value capture neither rises beyond the recovery from construction losses nor shifts up the chain: production remains concentrated in the lowest-value stage, matures only to the level of comparably young foreign-owned firms, and does not cover its own costs. The support that financed it required investment volume, revenue and employment retention; capability-relevant criteria entered the decree as considerations rather than conditions, and a capability-contingent instrument within the same scheme went unused. On the evidence to 2024 the bet is a lateral substitution at constant quality, in which battery-cell fabrication replaces automotive assembly at the same dependent position. Hosting the green transition's supply chain, the case shows, is not the same as capturing its value. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2610.37445 |
| By: | Evans, Alexander |
| Abstract: | This paper explores whether the US dollar’s dominance in global finance – long a pillar of American geopolitical influence – is being quietly eroded. While the dollar remains the world’s primary reserve currency, its centrality in international payments is increasingly contested. The weaponisation of the dollar, particularly through sanctions and the extraterritorial reach of the New York banking licence, has prompted strategic responses from states such as China, Russia, and India. These strategic responses include the development of alternative payment systems, local currency trade settlements, and digital infrastructure. The paper argues that a ‘hollowing’ of the dollar’s infrastructural dominance is underway – (perhaps very) gradual, partial, but geopolitically significant. This shift may not end dollar supremacy, but it could fragment the global financial system, weaken US sanctions leverage, and diminish the centrality of New York and London as financial hubs. The implications for global order are subtle but potentially profound. A less dollar-dependent system may facilitate a more multipolar world yet diminish liberal democratic power. |
| JEL: | F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:141656 |
| By: | Eloisa T. Glindro (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas); Mamerto E. Tangonan (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas); Rodalee E. Ofiaza (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) |
| Abstract: | Demonetization of high-value denomination currency is not the appropriate policy tool to root out financial crimes and systemic corruption. Instead, it is a blunt instrument that inflicts severe collateral damage to legitimate, cash-dependent populations. The economic costs of removing the legal tender status of high‑value denominations far outweigh the limited benefits of inconveniencing corrupt actors, making it an inefficient policy choice amid the availability of superior alternatives. Corrupt actors can ingeniously adapt by shifting to more sophisticated stores of value such as precious metals, shell companies, real estate, gold, and cryptocurrencies. Successful demonetization requires a science-based, security‑driven, and well- considered approach. Incentive structures created by institutions often drive corrupt behavior. When institutions are weak and the risks of detection and punishment are low, the rewards for corruption rise. Institutional reforms are key to combating systemic corruption and financial crimes: lifting of bank secrecy law, strengthening technology-aided financial intelligence, enforcing asset declaration requirements, implementing cash transaction regulations, and digitizing government services—including disbursements, collections, and procurement systems—to rein in discretionary power. |
| JEL: | E42 E51 D73 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bhd:dpaper:202511 |
| By: | Aykut, Dilek; Mauro, Paolo; Singh, Nimarjit; Volkov, Alexei |
| Abstract: | Although many studies have analyzed the drivers and impact of foreign direct investment, less is known about its determinants at different stages of the investment planning and implementation cycle. Meanwhile, researchers are increasingly relying on data tracking announcements of FDI projects, rather than traditional balance-of-payments information, which reflects actual investments. What share of announced projects is completed, and what factors can derail an investment’s progress after a decision is announced? This paper examines the implementation outcomes of all large announced greenfield FDI projects in low-income countries between 2011 and 2020 and explores some of the factors associated with greater likelihood of implementation. It finds that less than half of the projects in the sample were completed or remained on track. Implementation outcomes vary considerably across sectors and source countries. Based on a systematic analysis of publicly available information reported by companies and the media, the most frequently reported barriers to project realization seem to be policy, regulatory, and administrative constraints, as well as financing difficulties and investor-related challenges. Moreover, econometric results indicate that stronger post-announcement economic growth increases the likelihood of project completion, whereas larger projects are less likely to become operational. Among completed projects, the average time from announcement to operation is about three years; timelines vary across business activities but show little relationship with project size. |
| Date: | 2026–10–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11483 |
| By: | Fioretti, Michele; FitzPatrick, Kavanaugh; Iaria, Alessandro |
| Abstract: | Economic sanctions on oil-producing autocracies change not only the quantity of oil but also how it is produced. Combining field-level production data with satellite measurements of gas flaring and atmospheric methane across six Latin American countries from 2012 to 2024, we study the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. Per-barrel gas flaring in Venezuela rose about two-and-a-half-fold even as production fell by two-thirds, a pattern no unsanctioned neighbor shows, so environmental damage under sanctions is about two and a half times what a proportional decline in output would predict. Three channels generate this gap: the exit of small, dirty fields (composition) is more than offset by surviving fields running their infrastructure past design capacity (strain) and cutting their operating budgets (maintenance). We identify strain from the response of satellite-measured methane to the world price of naphtha, the imported diluent Venezuela's extra-heavy crude requires, and maintenance from a November 2022 U.S. Treasury license that allowed only Chevron to resume operations at its Venezuelan fields. A similar pattern of rising per-barrel emissions despite falling output appears under the sanctions on Iran (after 2018). |
| JEL: | F51 L71 Q35 Q53 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:344252 |
| By: | Pedram Ebadollahyvahed; Nneka Umeorah |
| Abstract: | Cryptocurrencies trade continuously while major traditional markets close over the weekend. We examine whether weekend cryptocurrency volatility predicts Monday variance in equity, commodity and fixed-income markets. Using daily range-based variance measures for Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, the S&P 500, gold and a US Treasury ETF over 2017-2026, we augment heterogeneous autoregressive models with a common weekend cryptocurrency factor. Predictive content is weak before 2024 but significant thereafter. In the post-2024 sample, a one-standard-deviation increase in the factor is associated with 27-54% higher fitted Monday variance. Adding the factor reduces out-of-sample QLIKE losses by 11-22%, although statistical evidence varies across markets. Friday cryptocurrency volatility does not reproduce the result, and coin-specific variation adds no significant predictive information beyond the common factor. An endogenous procedure estimates a break in late 2023, during growing anticipation of US spot-Bitcoin ETF approval. However, ETF-flow interactions provide no evidence of amplification through greater measured Monday flow activity, leaving the mechanism unresolved. The findings suggest that calendar-specific volatility measures reveal predictive information that aggregate connectedness measures may obscure. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2610.35702 |
| By: | Romero, Paola; Castaneda, Juan |
| Abstract: | Independent central banks must be effectively accountable, particularly when they engage in discretionary policies during a crisis. We argue that ex post assessment of central bank performance is insufficient for proper accountability. Using the inflationary episode that followed the Covid-19 pandemic, we show that a central bank explicitly committed to an inflation-targeting rule can deviate substantially from its target, with the extent of the deviation being identified only once it is already too late to correct it. We propose ‘procedural accountability’, a comprehensive framework for monetary policymaking. Drawing on the gold standard experience and existing rule-based proposals, we specify the minimal formal architecture any such regime must satisfy. |
| Keywords: | accountability;central banks;discretion;inflation targeting;monetary policy |
| JEL: | E42 E58 E61 |
| Date: | 2026–10–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140780 |
| By: | Elkerbout, Milan (Resources for the Future) |
| Abstract: | Like any form of commercial exchange, international carbon markets depend on both a buyer and seller finding a transaction beneficial. While private parties are critical in setting up transactions, international carbon markets are primarily transactions between countries, as credits can affect the official greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories of countries that are used to track progress toward climate targets.While the literature on international carbon markets (Michaelova et al. 2019) often discusses what type of investments may be financed by activities in the host country (i.e., the seller country), the potential for international carbon markets to finance investment in buyer countries with domestic carbon pricing policies is less recognized.This article discusses an adaptation of the idea of using European Union Emissions Trading System’s free allocation for low-carbon innovation as described in Elkerbout (2022a) and Elkerbout (2022b), instead focused on the use of international carbon market units from Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Other recent policy research (Dietz et al., 2026; Zachmann & Weisser, 2026) discuss related rationales for engaging in international carbon markets.A particularity of carbon markets under the Paris Agreement is that they are tools in service of a goal shared by both sides of the transaction—to ultimately reduce GHG emissions to net zero. Both sides of the transaction want (and need) to reduce emissions, albeit the buyer typically is committed to reducing emissions faster. However, both buyer and seller countries may be hesitant to engage in carbon-market transactions.For countries with stringent climate targets, the typical rationale to engage in international carbon markets is to access lower-cost abatement options, increasing the cost-effectiveness of a GHG-reduction target. Yet, while buyers may like the lower costs offered by international carbon markets, they may nevertheless worry that money invested abroad does not reduce emissions at home; it merely postpones when these costly reductions happen. Nor does money invested abroad bring the same local benefits, such as jobs or infrastructure. Seller countries may welcome the investment that carbon markets bring, but may also worry that selling their lowest cost abatement leaves them with higher costs for their remaining GHGs that they need to abate.Here, I propose an additional rationale for buyers and sellers to engage with international carbon markets: The procurement of carbon credits enables the financing of industrial policies that make the costlier reductions in hard-to-abate sectors (such as steel or chemicals production) more feasible in the longer term. For example, a country may be seeking ways to finance expensive green industrial policy (such as the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits) deemed necessary to finance the transformation of the industrial capital stock toward net zero.Jurisdictions with comparatively high domestic abatement costs could therefore exploit the difference between international and domestic abatement costs for fiscal reasons.A precondition is that carbon is scarcer in the buyer country—and therefore costlier—and that the carbon is priced explicitly through, for example, a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system. When the carbon price in the home jurisdiction exceeds price levels in the international carbon market, the difference in cost (the delta) could be used as a fiscal resource by retiring the international credit and creating a domestic unit—both representing the same ton of carbon dioxide equivalent—in its place.This approach assumes that governments choose to centrally procure international carbon credits, rather than allowing individual firms to buy credits.Governments can convert international carbon credits in this way for use in various carbon pricing policy designs:in an emissions trading system, via a domestic emissions allowancein a carbon taxation system, via a tax creditin a tradable performance standard or product standard model, via a domestic credit that counts toward GHG intensity in the reporting system |
| Date: | 2026–10–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rff:ibrief:ib-26-09 |
| By: | Hélène Ehrhart (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - UdA - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, AFD - Agence française de développement) |
| Abstract: | Since mid-2024, Ethiopia's economy has been gradually emerging from crisis, supported by the implementation of an IMF-backed reform program. Focused on exchange rate liberalization, fiscal consolidation, and debt restructuring, these reforms have led to a rapid improvement in macroeconomic fundamentals, further strengthened by favorable external factors. However, several challenges and vulnerabilities remain, and the economy still has limited buffers to withstand potential shocks, whether economic, climatic, or security-related. The heavy reliance of external balances on the strong performance of gold exports constitutes a source of fragility for the country. In addition, weak public revenues constrain investment capacity and the financing of social policies. Ongoing domestic and regional security tensions, along with climate and biodiversity-related vulnerabilities, constitute additional structural risks. While the reforms have helped restore short-term macroeconomic balance, challenges related to economic diversification, fiscal sustainability, and resilience to shocks remain central to placing Ethiopia on a sustainable development path. |
| Keywords: | Public debt restructuring, Public debt, Ethiopia, Exchange rate, Public finance, Macroeconomic, Inflation |
| Date: | 2026–04–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05762384 |