The real, real price of nonrenewable resources: copper 1870–2000

摘要: Over the past 40 years economists have devoted considerable effort to estimating long-run trends in real commodity prices. The results indicate that prices for many commodities fallen, suggesting surprise of resource scarcity is declining over time. Almost all this work, however, uses U.S. producer price index or other standard deflators, which recent research shows overestimate inflation several reasons. This article examines copper with adjusted deflators designed eliminate bias. It finds trend time, significantly downward when no adjustment made deflator, displays tendency either direction upward depending on magnitude deflator employed. These findings suggest resources provide less support than widely assumed hypothesis are becoming more available scarce