Реферат: International Raw Materials Market
St-Petersburg State Technical University
The Department of Economic & Management
The Chair of World Economics
Work on subject
«International Raw Materials Market»
The Student A.E Epechourin
Group 1078/2
The Tutor O.G. Lebedinskaj
St-Petersburg
1997
Contents
Pages
Introduction
1
I. <span Times New Roman"">
Trade intermediates and natural resourcesI.I Middle products (intermediates)
I.II Natural resources
3
3
5
II. Raw Materials
6
Summary
10
Addendum 1
12
Bibliography
13
Introduction
1. RawMaterials — A natural of semifinished god that is used in manufacturing orprocessing to make some other good. Bauxite is the raw materials (ore) fromwhich aluminum is made; aluminum is turn can be the raw material from whichhousehold utensils are manufactured.[1]
2.There is another definitions from the subject area of raw materials distinct from the above mentioned:
·Rawmaterials are products immediately extracted from nature which have undergone afirst processing through which they have become marketable and, consequently, atradable commodity. Raw materials include all energy raw materials (crude oil, naturalgas, coal, uranium), metals, semi-metals and industrial minerals (kaolin,graphite, sulfur, salts, phosphates), rocks, water as well as all plant andanimal products, whether they come from tropical regions (coffee, jute,tropical timber) or from temperate latitudes (wheat, meat, wool, etc.).[2]
·Rawmaterial economy: It comprises all activities which are part of the plannedhandling of raw materials, i.e. explanation, evaluation, extraction, conversioninto a tradable product, trade and forecasting. «Planned» here meanseconomically useful, ecologically and socially responsible activities.[2]
·Resources are all natural material systems which as such are no commodities,but the intactness of which is a basic prerequisite for the continued existenceof the earth's chemical and physical equilibrium and, consequently, for thesurvival of mankind. Resources include: the ozone balance, the CO2 balance, theequilibrium of sea water, the tropical forest, the krill and fish population,etc.[2]
·World resource balances are the planned (i.e. ecologically useful and sociallyresponsible) handling of resources. This comprises: the explanation,evaluation, risk assessment and forecasting regarding world resources.[2]
Current research emphasis [2]
·international raw material balances
·supply problems of the industrial countries
·location disadvantages of the developing countries
·dumping problems in international raw material trade
·recycling as a source for raw materials
·rawmaterial deposits and connected environmental problems in east Siberia(addendum 1)
·structural questions and environmental problems of the Polish energyand metal economy[2]
I. Tradeintermediates and natural resources
Once international trade in more than final consumer goods is allowed,basic notions of comparative advantage need to be re-examined. We have alreadydiscussed the limitations in a multi-commodity wordof comparing autarky prices in two countries to predict item-by-item the patternof trade; generally only correlations can be made except under additionalassumptions. With trade in intermediates allowed, the problems in predictingtrade in final goods became even greater. As MakKenzie(1945) remarked in one of his classic problem on the Ricardian model, thefamiliar nineteenth century trade pattern in which Lancashireproduced and exported cotton textileswould most probably not have been observed if England had had to grow its own cotton <span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[1].We shall have occasion both in this section and to revert to this theme: thepattern of trade in final goods may not be readily deducible from thecomparison of pre-trade relative prices in these markets.[3]
I.I Middle products (intermediates)
The phrase «middle-products» was used by Sanyaland Jones (1982) to encompass what traditionally are referred to asintermediate goods, goods-in-process, and natural resources which have beenextracted and prepared for trade on world markets. The core concept in theirmodel is that of a productive spectrum whereby, at initial stages, naturalresources and raw materials are processed and, in the final stages,goods-in-process and intermediate products are locally assembled for nationalconsumption. International trade, according to this view, takes place incommodities, somewhere in the «middle» of this productive spectrum, freeing upa nation’s input requirements in the final stages of production from its outputtradeable middle products at earlier stages.[3]
Such a view of the role of international trade suggests a naturaldivision between that part of the economy which produces commodities (middleproducts) for the world market (including the local economy), called the InputTier, and that section of the economy which makes use of internationally tradedmiddle products as input along with local resources to produce none-trade goodsfor final consumption (the Output Tier). Ruled out by assumption in the simpleversion on this model is the notion that the «middle» stages of the productivespectrum might be «thick» in the sense that tradeable middle products might useother tradeable middle products as inputs. In addition, in production structurein each tier of the economy as assumed to resemble that of the specific-factorsmodel. Labor is mobile both among sectors in each tier and between tiers. Thebalance of payments provides an additional link between the two tiers; if thetrade account is balanced, the value of total output from the Input Tier of theeconomy is matched by the value of middle products used as inputs (along withlabour) in the Output Tier.[3]
Several types of questions have been raised in the context on thismodel, and of central concern in each case is the allocation of labour betweentiers and the real wage. Fore example, a transfer payment which gives rise to atrade surplus requires labour to be reallocated to the Input Tier as consumption falls, and this servesunambiguously to reduce the real wage.[3]
If domestic (and world) pricesof trade middle products remain constant to the small country, all non-labourinputs in the Output Tier can be aggregated, a la Hicks, into a compositemiddle product input, which serves to convert the production structure in theOutput Tier from an (n+1)-factor, n-commodity specific-factors model into atwo-factors, many-commodity Heckscher-Ohlin model.[3]
In the middle-products model Input Tier is the existence of a worldmarket in which middle products can be exchanged for each other that permitssuch a conversion.[3]
The middle-products model allows countries and sectors to differ in theextent to which local value must be added to transform middle products intofinal commodities, and much depends upon this comparison. It does not, however, focus upon anotherquestion: in à verticalproduction structure with many stages, which goods-in-process or middle products does àcountry import and which does it export? Two recent papers have tackled this issue independently and with different models. Sanyal (1980) assumes that in each of two countries à commodity is produced in àcontinuum of stages, with differentRicardian labor-only input structures.Depending upon technological differences and relative country size, àcut-off point will be determined, with one country producing the commodity from rawmaterial stage to some intermediate point, and then exporting this good-in-process to the other country where labor is applied to finish the production process. By contrast, Dixit and Grossman (1982) use à specific-factors model, with one of the commodities (manufacturing) produced in àcontinuum of stages using capital andlabor (the other sector using land and labor) <span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[2].These stages are arranged such that, as goods-in-process develop towards the final stage, more labor-intensive techniques are required. Thus with two countries, the labor-abundantcountry will tend to specialize in later stages of the productive spectrum<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[3]
.[3]They analyze how endowmentchanges alter the cut-off point, as well as investigating issues related to content protection.[3]
I.IINatural resources
As Chapter 8 in this volume discusses, the normative question of pricing natural resources (exhaustible orrenewable) has received much attention in the literature of the past decade. The middle-productsapproach stresses that some activities, the extraction of naturalresources, must take place locally although international trade then allowsother countries access to these resources. Obviously, comparative advantage changes over time for countries engaged in exporting exhaustible resource. In early work Vanek (1963) traced through the changing pattern of United States trade in naturalresources, and suggested that asymmetries in resource use and availabilitycould account for the Leontief paradox. In àcontext of multi-level trade, the costs of recourseextraction in one country often depend on the availability offoreign capital. Kemp and Ohyama(1978) have presented à simple model of North - South trade in which South makes use of Northern capital to develop its resources and exports these resources to the North where they are used to produce final commodities<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[4].They put their model to use in exploring the normative issue of different degrees of bargaining strength and ability to exploit via export taxes and tariffsin the two regions. But the model also stresses the involvement of capital flows in resourceextraction. Schmitzand Helmberger (1979) argue strongly for complementarity between trade in resources and trade in capital, àpoint also stressed by Williams in his 1929 article. We turn to consider more generally, now, theinteraction between trade in goods and trade in factors.[3]
Addendum 1
Siberiais Among Leaders in Raw Materials Markets[5]
Siberia's rating looks more impressive in some groups of goods than its7-th general placing. Split the whole flow of commercial projects into 9 groupsof goods, and for 6 of them Siberia joins the leading three:
Timber and Paper
I Siberia 32.6
II Moscow 19.1
III St.-Petersburg 14.2
Fuel
I Siberia 20.3
II Urals 13.2
III Moscow 12.3
Chemical Products
I Moscow 17.2
II Siberia 15.7
III St.-Petersburg 11.9
Construction Materials
I Moscow 22.0
II Siberia 14.1
III Urals 5.6
Transportation
I Moscow 23.6
II Siberia 12.4
III Volga 12.1
Metals
I St.-Petersburg 20.9
II Urals 19.6
III Siberia 11.7
Bibliography
1. «TheNew Polgrave a dictionary of economic» Editor: J.Eatwell, M.Mmilgate P.Newman
2. Chairof Raw Material Economy and World Resource Balances Prof. Dr.rer.nat.E. Machens (temporary appointment)
3. «PositiveTheory of International Trade» Editor: R.W. Jones, J.P.Neary (pages 31-37)
4. «The World Economy History &Prospect» Editor: W.W Rostow (part 52 «The Future ofthe World Economy», pages 610-618)
5. «Siberia is Among Leaders in Raw MaterialsMarkets»Editors: Alexei Alexeev,Andrey Kiselev
<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">[1]
In Jones (1980) a two-country Recardian model is illustrated in which one commodityrequires an intermediate input and technologies differ between countries Thepattern of trade can be reversed as a result of variations in the price of thetraded intermediate.<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">[2]
Bothpapers cite the use of the continuum concept in Dornbusch, Fischer, and Samuelson (1977).<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">[3]
Àlimitation of both papers is the assumption that costs (or factor proportions) move monotonically from lower to higherstages of production. If not, trade may take place à1 many points in the productive spectrum in the absence ofinhibiting transport costs.<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">[4]
Thismodel is described in simplified terms by Findlay (1979).