After five years of tough negotiations at numerous conferences about an integrated Programme for Commodities (IPC) the participating countries agreed in March 1979 on basic and operational regulations for the key instrument of this programme, a Common Fund. In its present version it is closely...

The successful completion of negotiations on the Common Fund has not yet led to the hoped-for break-through for any of the commodity agreements belonging to the Integrated Programme for Commodities (IPC). Opposition, particularly by the industrialised countries, but also by individual producer...

The International Tin Council (ITC) has, by setting up a “Preparatory Committee”, once more given the starting signal for the preparation of a new International Tin Agreement (ITA). The intention is that the new agreement should take over from the current 6th ITA when it expires on 30th...

Since developing countries are dependent to a large extent on the export of commodities, changes in commodity prices on world markets can have dramatic effects on living standards and on government budgets. The following paper examines the factors behind such changes and discusses the...

Economists have long been questioning the usefulness of the traditional, highly regulatory international commodity policy. In recent years, the failure of this policy has become evident. Could price and earnings stabilisation through price risk management instruments represent a viable alternative?

The emergence of a mass market for electric vehicles (EVs) offers considerable development opportunities for resource exporters, given their intensive raw material requirements, including for cobalt, nickel, lithium, copper, aluminium, and manganese. To exploit the benefits of new demand,...

Nowadays the production systems are linear and the consumption patterns are essentially based on products with a short life cycle, which contribute to increase the demand for raw materials and environmental impacts. The Circular Economy (CE) is playing a major role among scholars and...

The Entrepreneurship in the Raw Materials Sector proceeding is a collection of papers focusing on the macroeconomic aspects of green growth, the business opportunities in the raw materials sector, and the challenges in entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship training. These papers were presented...

When it comes to being supplied with raw materials, Europe faces a number of challenges. These include the diversification of European supply chains, the implementation of effective sustainability standards, and the reduction of strategic dependencies on China. What will European-Chinese raw...

We assess the degree of connectedness among 16 metals that are critical for the production of clean energy technologies. These commodities are the constituents of the Energy Transition Metals (ETMs) price index maintained by the International Monetary Fund and comprise base, precious, and minor...