The power of mineral: Shock of the global supply chain from resource nationalism

Abstract

State intervention has long affected the stability of the global mineral and raw material markets. Global energy transition has continued to boost demand for copper, lithium, cobalt, and nickel. It has exacerbated the global prevalence of resource nationalism. Research on resource nationalism has focused on the interaction of economic, political, cultural, and social elements within countries. The lack of understanding of the global economic effects of resource nationalism limits our flexibility in responding to upheavals in the global resource order. We combine time series counterfactual analysis and input–output modeling to advance our understanding of the worldwide supply chain effects of resource nationalism. We analyze the impacts of resource political behavior on global supply chains based on several representative episodes of resource nationalism. While major industrialized countries suffer more absolute welfare losses, formerly developed countries in the Global South face higher price effects. Moreover, nationalist resource shocks are not the only cause of welfare losses in the metals supply chain sector. Still, they are also harming various industries and groups, from food and energy to services. Such differences in price and welfare effects depend on the type of mineral and the resource power of the event-initiating country, on the one hand, and are influenced by the global industrial division of labor, on the other. More losses in developing countries come from the agricultural sector and primary manufacturing than from the severity of the losses suffered by the manufacturing and service sectors in industrial and rich countries. This is a reminder to pay more attention to the unequal distribution of economic pressures across countries and sectors in the global energy transition.