Latin America & Caribbean | Mineral rents (% of GDP)

Mineral rents are the difference between the value of production for a stock of minerals at world prices and their total costs of production. Minerals included in the calculation are tin, gold, lead, zinc, iron, copper, nickel, silver, bauxite, and phosphate. 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
Records
63
Source
Latin America & Caribbean | Mineral rents (% of GDP)
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1.45899194 1970
1.06072139 1971
0.94765742 1972
1.3099752 1973
1.61832731 1974
0.83584646 1975
0.97762111 1976
0.9185987 1977
0.71257302 1978
0.96012555 1979
1.00122805 1980
0.56790921 1981
0.60829328 1982
0.66921215 1983
0.613127 1984
0.59258149 1985
0.44561671 1986
0.66175078 1987
1.50957086 1988
1.35564386 1989
0.94824181 1990
0.55391641 1991
0.45321743 1992
0.253944 1993
0.32934446 1994
0.45644526 1995
0.37318664 1996
0.32103476 1997
0.24120453 1998
0.28297667 1999
0.32462757 2000
0.26410734 2001
0.28608218 2002
0.36752544 2003
0.70475278 2004
1.00724642 2005
1.6844373 2006
1.9730928 2007
1.68474561 2008
0.9395746 2009
1.66941144 2010
1.92850739 2011
1.45875114 2012
1.26642602 2013
0.86857096 2014
0.60325153 2015
0.73689922 2016
0.92745947 2017
0.93693922 2018
0.5739089 2019
0.98122022 2020
3.58812635 2021
2022

Latin America & Caribbean | Mineral rents (% of GDP)

Mineral rents are the difference between the value of production for a stock of minerals at world prices and their total costs of production. Minerals included in the calculation are tin, gold, lead, zinc, iron, copper, nickel, silver, bauxite, and phosphate. 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
Records
63
Source