From Commodity Discovery to Production

Khan, Tehmina ; Nguyen, Trang ; Ohnsorge, Franziska ; Schodde, Richard

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: exhaustible resources;    nonrenewable resources;    resource boom;    energy;    commodity markets;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7823
RP-ID  :  WPS7823

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Major resource discoveries havetransformed growth prospects for many low-income countries.However, the sharp downturn in commodity prices in recentyears is affecting resource investment in these countries,and may delay the development of recent discoveries intoproduction. This study investigates lead times fromdiscovery to production for a unique data set of gold andcopper discoveries worldwide during 1950-2014. The studyemploys standard parametric and nonparametric durationanalysis. The results suggest an important role for copperprices; for instance, an upswing at the time of discoverycan hasten the development of the mine by two to three yearsin low-income countries. There appears to be a similarlybeneficial impact on lead times of sounder macroeconomicpolicies and quality of governance.