Understanding market sensitivity: Estimation of supply and demand elasticities for non-fuel minerals

Mineral Economics
By: , and 

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Abstract

In today’s rapidly changing economic landscape, understanding market responsiveness to price changes and the factors influencing commodity prices has become increasingly relevant. Price elasticities serve as indicators of how variations in market conditions affect supply and demand, providing insights into the sensitivity of commodity markets to price fluctuations. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of price elasticities of supply and demand for 74 non-fuel mineral commodities including precious metals, base metals, minor metals, and industrial minerals that are utilized across various industries. We employ various econometric techniques, including fixed effects models for panel data and two-stage dynamic ordinary least squares (2S-DOLS) alongside autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models for time series analysis, to derive robust estimates of price elasticities. Our findings reveal variability in elasticities among different commodities and indicate that all studied mineral commodities exhibit price inelastic supply and demand in the short run, which we define as one year for the purposes of our analysis, given that the data is all annual. This research provides original estimates of price responsiveness for a wide range of commodities that have not been previously addressed in the literature, thereby enhancing the understanding of market dynamics in the mineral sector. Given that price elasticities can be influenced by factors such as market structure, technological advancements, mining costs, and industry-specific demand drivers, we use variables that serve as proxies for these factors.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Understanding market sensitivity: Estimation of supply and demand elasticities for non-fuel minerals
Series title Mineral Economics
DOI 10.1007/s13563-025-00537-3
Volume 38
Publication Date September 11, 2025
Year Published 2025
Language English
Publisher Springer
Contributing office(s) National Minerals Information Center
Description 12 p.
First page 985
Last page 996
Additional publication details