The Real, real price of nonrenewable resources:: Copper 1870-2000

被引:38
作者
Svedberg, P [1 ]
Tilton, JE
机构
[1] Univ Stockholm, S-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
[2] Pontificia Univ Catolica Chile, Santiago, Chile
[3] Colorado Sch Mines, Golden, CO 80401 USA
关键词
real price; nonrenewable resources; copper; depletion; minerals;
D O I
10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.07.018
中图分类号
F0 [经济学]; F1 [世界各国经济概况、经济史、经济地理]; C [社会科学总论];
学科分类号
0201 ; 020105 ; 03 ; 0303 ;
摘要
Over the past 40 years, economists have devoted considerable effort to estimating long-run trends in commodity prices. The results indicate that the real prices for many commodities have fallen, suggesting to the surprise of many that resource scarcity is declining over time. Almost all of this work, however, uses the US producer price index or other standard price deflators, which recent research shows overestimate inflation for several reasons. This article examines copper prices with adjusted deflators designed to eliminate this bias, It finds that the trend over time, which is significantly downward when no adjustment is made to the deflator, displays no tendency in either direction or is significantly upward depending on the magnitude of the deflator adjustment employed. These findings suggest that real resource prices provide less support than widely assumed for the hypothesis that resources are becoming more available or less scarce over time. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:501 / 519
页数:19
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