Latin America & Caribbean (excluding high income) | Total natural resources rents (% of GDP)

Total natural resources rents are the sum of oil rents, natural gas rents, coal rents (hard and soft), mineral rents, and forest rents. Development relevance: Accounting for the contribution of natural resources to economic output is important in building an analytical framework for sustainable development. In some countries earnings from natural resources, especially from fossil fuels and minerals, account for a sizable share of GDP, and much of these earnings come in the form of economic rents - revenues above the cost of extracting the resources. Natural resources give rise to economic rents because they are not produced. For produced goods and services competitive forces expand supply until economic profits are driven to zero, but natural resources in fixed supply often command returns well in excess of their cost of production. Rents from nonrenewable resources - fossil fuels and minerals - as well as rents from overharvesting of forests indicate the liquidation of a country's capital stock. When countries use such rents to support current consumption rather than to invest in new capital to replace what is being used up, they are, in effect, borrowing against their future. Statistical concept and methodology: The estimates of natural resources rents are calculated as the difference between the price of a commodity and the average cost of producing it. This is done by estimating the price of units of specific commodities and subtracting estimates of average unit costs of extraction or harvesting costs. These unit rents are then multiplied by the physical quantities countries extract or harvest to determine the rents for each commodity as a share of gross domestic product (GDP).
Publisher
The World Bank
Origin
Latin America & Caribbean (excluding high income)
Records
63
Source
Latin America & Caribbean (excluding high income) | Total natural resources rents (% of GDP)
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970 1.31128528
1971 1.22535458
1972 1.28024841
1973 1.84874277
1974 4.05437632
1975 3.46972833
1976 3.63992659
1977 3.69061928
1978 3.64935285
1979 7.6396226
1980 8.71256715
1981 6.72304095
1982 6.38759057
1983 7.25846129
1984 6.88025556
1985 6.44993348
1986 3.30939743
1987 4.8613858
1988 4.4014857
1989 4.2508076
1990 4.46241441
1991 2.69474145
1992 2.60105367
1993 2.07840497
1994 1.78620625
1995 2.06225659
1996 2.23793342
1997 1.92228582
1998 1.26951915
1999 2.05252508
2000 2.99601923
2001 2.42272592
2002 2.92470045
2003 3.22351189
2004 3.78264329
2005 4.8671264
2006 5.46065505
2007 5.32209236
2008 5.89854971
2009 3.35164348
2010 4.41210274
2011 5.65063023
2012 5.12144557
2013 4.64512964
2014 4.03266467
2015 2.25575976
2016 2.19639041
2017 2.55721683
2018 3.31053827
2019 2.69679647
2020 2.3269077
2021 5.59850998
2022

Latin America & Caribbean (excluding high income) | Total natural resources rents (% of GDP)

Total natural resources rents are the sum of oil rents, natural gas rents, coal rents (hard and soft), mineral rents, and forest rents. Development relevance: Accounting for the contribution of natural resources to economic output is important in building an analytical framework for sustainable development. In some countries earnings from natural resources, especially from fossil fuels and minerals, account for a sizable share of GDP, and much of these earnings come in the form of economic rents - revenues above the cost of extracting the resources. Natural resources give rise to economic rents because they are not produced. For produced goods and services competitive forces expand supply until economic profits are driven to zero, but natural resources in fixed supply often command returns well in excess of their cost of production. Rents from nonrenewable resources - fossil fuels and minerals - as well as rents from overharvesting of forests indicate the liquidation of a country's capital stock. When countries use such rents to support current consumption rather than to invest in new capital to replace what is being used up, they are, in effect, borrowing against their future. Statistical concept and methodology: The estimates of natural resources rents are calculated as the difference between the price of a commodity and the average cost of producing it. This is done by estimating the price of units of specific commodities and subtracting estimates of average unit costs of extraction or harvesting costs. These unit rents are then multiplied by the physical quantities countries extract or harvest to determine the rents for each commodity as a share of gross domestic product (GDP).
Publisher
The World Bank
Origin
Latin America & Caribbean (excluding high income)
Records
63
Source