The paper discusses the practical possibilities of achieving increased downstream processing and the policies that are commonly used for this purpose. It reviews the reasons why forward vertical integration is not always an optimal choice for extractive industry companies. It finds little...

Local content policies in the context of extractive industries have attracted increased interest in recent years. Most countries with a significant extractive industry have included local content requirements either in their legislation or exploitation contracts. Such efforts may be constrained...

The paper discusses the practical possibilities of achieving increased downstream processing and the policies that are commonly used for this purpose. It reviews the reasons why forward vertical integration is not always an optimal choice for extractive industry companies. It finds little...

The paper reviews what we know about the possibilities of designing and implementing policy measures that raise the contribution of the extractive industries' production/consumption links to economic growth and wellbeing, and reviews how policies pursued by various governments have succeeded. It...

The paper reviews the debate about transparency in extractive industry commodities trade. It examines the obstacles to improved transparency. A critical review of the experience with estimating losses from a lack of transparency concludes that many of the published estimates of losses from...

Employment creation is often claimed as an important benefit of investment in mining and large-scale agriculture. A closer look at employment tied to these investments provides greater clarity on the challenges of estimating employment effects and optimizing employment outcomes through targeted...

In the wake of the commodity boom and bust, a number of articles and reports have made the case that the surge in commodity prices and the subsequent fall were caused by speculation, particularly by index funds. This claim is reviewed and an overview of the arguments is presented. By way of...