Econometric analysis of the historical growth and volatility trends of various metals

Post Malthusian economics, there is growing recognition of the impact technological change and advance has on market activity. By studying historical production and price trends, boundaries of feasible growth can be determined and, dependent on a firm's goals, materials that may require added recyclability, substitution, or engineering efficiency identified. Therefore, a contextual understanding of growth and volatility can mitigate negative economic impacts. This study involved the econometric analysis of a 16-metal survey. Various analysis techniques were used to determine historical growth and volatility trends of both industrial and precious metals. For this data set, a typical sustained annualized growth rate of production was between 0.0% and 5.0% based on 20-year CAGR data. Price growth tended to range between -2.5% and 2.5% for 20-year time frames but was much more volatile in the short-term. From 1979 to 2009, 56% of all annual value growth rates were greater than +10.0% or less than -10.0%. Additionally, several metals had coefficients of variation greater than unity thereby being classified as hyper-variant. While the premise of a commodities exchange is to heighten the predictability of value, little difference of price volatility was found between metals on (0.28) and off (0.31) open exchanges. Aside from the survey, case studies of tantalum and niobium were completed. These co-mined materials appeared to have a strong correlation with their price growth as well as their production trends.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Jones, Brittany Laurél

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joel P. Clark.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/76124

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/76124