Is America dematerializing? Trends and tradeoffs in historic demand for one hundred commodities in the United States

Abstract

We introduce a broad yet detailed data framework to assess the physical basis of modern industrial societies based on trends in their commodity demand. Using the example of the United States from 1900 to 2020, we consider both absolute commodity demand (ABS) and demand indexed to economic activity, otherwise known as intensity of use (IOU), for one hundred commodities that constitute the bulk of the material entering the US economy annually. The commodities selected are generally raw materials that enter the economy as industrial inputs that are further processed and incorporated into intermediate and finished products. The data show that ABS for nearly all the 100 commodities rose steadily until 1970 with IOU consistently rising for many as well. After that time, the trends for different groups of commodities start to diverge. Comparing ABS and IOU for the years 1970 and 2020 brings into focus the divergent trends. We find that for many metals and mineral commodities, domestic consumption fell over the last half century, though much of this missing consumption may represent production displaced to other locations. For a larger cross section of commodities, consumption grew but more slowly than the rest of the economy, as per capita consumption for many basic industrial and consumer commodities remained roughly steady. For a small group of commodities, including technology metals, consumption grew faster than the rest of the economy between 1970 and 2020. By examining a large range of commodities over time, we develop a disaggregated framework for more rigorously assessing whether contemporary industrial societies are dematerializing, that is, reducing the amount of physical material necessary for their economies to function. Though restricted to the United States, this study has relevance to other countries around the world in elucidating the underlying physical basis of modern economies with implications for environmental quality, economic competitiveness, and national security.