Low & middle income | 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
Low & middle income
Records
63
Source
Low & middle income | Mineral rents (% of GDP)
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970 0.51232079
1971 0.37726427
1972 0.37204179
1973 0.59040516
1974 0.9070977
1975 0.49642722
1976 0.4835599
1977 0.57065531
1978 0.35254525
1979 0.62489901
1980 1.03147614
1981 0.64253479
1982 0.52796811
1983 0.57801426
1984 0.34170535
1985 0.41439757
1986 0.33985765
1987 0.43079671
1988 0.77857533
1989 0.6688309
1990 0.44626353
1991 0.38893521
1992 0.52485272
1993 0.34453256
1994 0.33891787
1995 0.29750906
1996 0.25374401
1997 0.20545003
1998 0.2636996
1999 0.24952778
2000 0.2235135
2001 0.19500333
2002 0.21773471
2003 0.19658077
2004 0.30473368
2005 0.60460424
2006 0.94994755
2007 1.47117361
2008 1.49359019
2009 0.81452586
2010 1.47146221
2011 1.68368121
2012 0.91994419
2013 0.78940037
2014 0.52230247
2015 0.32735701
2016 0.3857055
2017 0.46217215
2018 0.42125481
2019 0.41644969
2020 0.43703572
2021 1.25427649
2022

Low & middle income | 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
Low & middle income
Records
63
Source