Abstract Critical raw materials (CRMs) differ from bulk commodities: markets typically are smaller, costs higher, technologies more complex, and supplies more geographically concentrated. Standard tools from resource and energy economics, often borrowed from oil and gas studies, miss these distinct features. This paper argues that economists should draw on insights from science and engineering—mineral engineering, mechanical engineering, geology, chemistry, materials science, and industrial ecology—to better understand supply risks, demand and substitution, prices, and life-cycle flows. We highlight how cumulative availability curves, bottom-up engineering models, life cycle assessment, material flow analysis, and other approaches can enrich economic research and strengthen policy debates on supply chains, industrial strategy, and the energy transition.
Abstract Recent evidence shows that imports of critical products can be concentrated on a small number of supplier countries. Such supplies are therefore vulnerable to disruption, whether because unfriendly governments seek to weaponize dependency or for other reasons. In a laissez-faire equilibrium, importers are likely to buy from too few suppliers because the benefits of diversification are not fully internalized, while the costs of buying from more expensive sources remain with them. Heavy-handed policy action could end up exacerbating volatility and result in high costs for taxpayers. This article proposes diversification tariffs (DTs) as practical and market-friendly instruments to incentivize diversification. DTs apply on imports of a critical product from any country if its share of total domestic demand exceeds a certain threshold. Such a design would help to diversify the supplier base by encouraging imports from new sources. Compared to laissez-faire, DTs would push up the market price to be paid by users as the marginal seller would no longer be the least expensive one. However, if well implemented, in equilibrium, DTs are never really paid. Focusing on the economics of DTs, this paper introduces the concept, discusses implementation issues, and touches—inconclusively—on World Trade Organization (WTO) compatibility.
Abstract Growing demand for critical raw materials (CRMs) and concerns over global supply chains raise questions about the very nature of mining and metals extraction. Here I review metal ore formation and geographic distribution in the context of conventional mining with its reliance on energy-intensive rock excavation, crushing, beneficiation and hydrometallurgy. I explore disruptive alternative sources for CRMs, notably saline geofluids, an underexplored category of natural and engineered aqueous solutions that includes geothermal and oilfield brines. CRM contents of many saline geofluids are economically significant, albeit reliable chemical data are sparse. Although saline geofluid CRMs are low-concentration relative to conventional ores, metal production costs are not proportionately greater, especially when fluid flow rates are high. Significant technological innovation, in materials science and process engineering, is needed to access this vast new CRM search space. Greater global distribution of saline geofluids compared to orebodies is highly advantageous for security of supply.
Abstract The increased geopolitical and geoeconomic importance of critical minerals requires a clear and accurate understanding of the nature of supply. Without this understanding, analysis of a range of key economic and policy questions will be based on systematically biased evidence and hence risks misinforming policy. This paper uses state-of-the-art techniques combining satellite imaging and artificial intelligence to detect mines and build a global mining database. A comparison of ‘new’ and ‘old’ techniques to record mines indicates a significant gap in the form of missing mines. ‘Missing mines’ tend to be relatively small but can be found across a wide array of institutional settings and may be associated with multiple sources of misreporting. That said, there is some evidence that countries with higher shares of smaller missing mines exhibit lower control of corruption. The comprehensive nature of our database is helpful to revisit environmental, social, and developmental spillovers stemming from the rapidly growing number of critical mines.
Abstract This paper examines economic and geopolitical consequences of the current phase of superpower competition to secure access to the critical minerals that are central to the global energy transition, digitalization, and the AI-led transformation of the global economy. We first review the upstream mining of critical minerals, which takes place primarily in developing countries, before considering downstream elements of critical mineral supply chains, including the central role of China in the processing of these minerals. We discuss the socio-economic and environmental consequences associated with the race for critical minerals and conclude with a discussion of policies that may be deployed to support equitable and sustainable management of these minerals in an era of unprecedented technological and geopolitical uncertainty.
Abstract The global economy is gradually exiting the era of fossil fuels while entering the era of critical minerals. That shift is coming in handy for fossil fuel dependent economies, which have had difficulty diversifying outside the resource sector. It is, indeed, politically and economically expedient for leaders in fossil fuel dependent economies to diversify within the extractive sector instead of moving beyond it. Yet, the massive technological and geopolitical uncertainties associated with the era of critical minerals will make diversification within the extractive sector risky. Adopting fiscal prudence and long-term contracts for critical minerals can partly mitigate the risk but leaves open the need to find sustainable engines for economic growth and jobs.
This paper compares the impacts of critical mineral price and oil price on an economy in a unified neoclassical growth model. Unlike oil price shocks, which affect the cost of utilizing existing capital (e.g., cars), critical mineral price shocks influence the cost of creating new capital (e.g., electric vehicles) without altering the cost of existing capital. We find that both types of shocks ultimately reduce output and welfare. However, oil-price increases are systematically more contractionary for the economy. Mineral-price increases generate comparatively larger adjustments in investment, capital, and external borrowing but smaller and more gradual losses in output and welfare, and in capital-rich economies can slightly raise long-run employment. These results imply that oil-price shocks remain the more serious threat to aggregate activity and welfare, whereas mineral-price shocks call for policies that smooth investment and external-balance-sheet adjustment (e.g., macroprudential tools and precautionary reserves or fiscal buffers). Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
Abstract US–China geopolitical tensions pose significant risks to global critical-mineral supply chains, particularly because refining capacity for most critical minerals, including aluminium, copper, nickel, tin, and zinc, is overwhelmingly concentrated in China. Using monthly data from 1995 to 2025 and a structural VAR-local projection framework, we estimate the dynamic effects of exogenous shocks to the US–China Political Relations Index (PRI) on mineral markets. We find that geopolitical deterioration systematically induces significant precautionary stockpiling. We then construct a multidimensional friend-shoring index incorporating reserves, alignment, regime type, and distance, showing that only a narrow set of United States partners, primarily Australia and Canada, offer feasible pathways for refining diversification. The policy recommendation stemming from our findings is that the United States should make strategic stockpiling of refined critical minerals, rather than raw ores, the centrepiece of its strategy to build supply chain resilience, while negotiating long-term bilateral packages for the supply of refined critical minerals with Australia and Canada.
Care work, encompassing childcare, eldercare, disability care, household maintenance and emotional support, sustains the human capabilities upon which all economic activity depends. Much of this caring labour is unpaid, takes place within households and communities, and is disproportionately undertaken by women. Despite its foundational role in national economies, care has long occupied a marginal position in economic theory, measurement and policy, and remains systematically undervalued and undermeasured. This introductory article distils core insights from the twenty articles that comprise the double issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy on the economics of care, situating them within the existing scholarship. It explains how the neglect of care has created enduring oversights in economic analysis and highlights the conceptual, methodological and empirical innovations brought together in this issue. It examines how unpaid and paid forms of care shape labour supply, productivity, inequality and well-being, and explores how the organization, valuation and distribution of care work generate both disadvantages and privileges across gender, class, race and immigration status. It also addresses the macroeconomic implications of care, including its role in shaping growth, investment and economic resilience, and examines how demographic change, climate shocks and digitalization are reshaping care systems. Taken together, the contributions demonstrate that care should not be treated as a residual concern but as a subject of inquiry at the heart of economic analysis.
This paper examines the interconnection of the care crisis and the climate crisis. With a focus on childcare and eldercare, it discusses how climate change impinges on these types of care systems by heightening the demand for care and posing challenges to the carers and societies in general. It also demonstrates how underlying structural inequalities in society shape the ways in which climate-related shocks and stressors impact people and their capacities to respond to them. The paper then provides examples of innovative efforts in building a resilient care system and argues that a transformative shift is necessary towards the integration of care in climate discourses and agendas and in the mitigation and adaptation plans of governments, businesses, and households. Only then can we improve our capacities for care in a warming world and achieve a sustainable future.
Caring labour, whether paid or unpaid, creates value, supports economic activity, and generates positive externalities, yet suffers neglect in conventional economic metrics. Breastfeeding exemplifies this: despite its critical role in infant health and social reproduction, its value is often unrecognized. Using historical data on weaning practices between 1850 and 1970, this paper traces how infant feeding interacted with broader economic and public health developments. As its economic costs fell and its benefits were better understood, prolonged breastfeeding protected infants from weak public health infrastructure. Yet as scientific discoveries on milk composition spurred commercial substitutes, and public health investment reduced the harms of early weaning, breastfeeding prevalence declined. The economic history of breastfeeding offers a study in how social and economic interventions yield unintended consequences. Our findings highlight the need for public policy that acknowledges care labour's broader societal benefits, ensuring it is adequately supported rather than left to individual responsibility.
This article develops a comprehensive framework for integrating care into macroeconomic models. Moving beyond treating care as merely a constraint on women's labour force participation, I position it as a productive process essential to developing human capabilities-which have both intrinsic value and instrumental importance to economic outcomes. The article distinguishes human capabilities from narrower conceptions of human capital and argues that care provisioning should be recognized as a public good with profound macroeconomic implications. By systematically addressing integration challenges-including reconceptualizing GDP as a means rather than an end, reformulating investment to include human capabilities development, and examining the complex relationship between care quality and economic outcomes-the article establishes a transformative research agenda with significant policy implications. Our analysis of dynamic considerations, particularly demographic shifts and structural transformation challenges, demonstrates how care-centred approaches offer fresh insights into pressing development issues. Rather than proposing a single all-encompassing model, I advocate for methodological pluralism that can capture the multifaceted nature of care while remaining analytically rigorous. This approach not only enriches theoretical understanding but also equips policy-makers with more effective tools for promoting equitable, sustainable, and care-inclusive economic development-bridging the gap between feminist economic theory and practical policy applications.
This paper makes the case for recognizing spending on care, whether for young children, disabled adults, or the frail elderly, as an investment in social infrastructure: 'investment' because some of its benefits are in the future as well as in the current period, and 'infrastructure' because it builds up an asset, the care system, with wider benefits to society than just those to the direct users of the services. Different metrics that could be used to measure costs and benefits are considered, as well as why national accounts do not take into account the benefits of investing in care. This matters because ignoring those investment benefits results in expenditure on care being less than it would be if they were taken into account, with adverse gender effects. It also matters because expenditure on care is not then considered when an economic stimulus is needed, despite having excellent multiplier effects, and because, fearing an adverse market reaction, policy-makers may not allow themselves to borrow to fund care spending. The paper concludes by considering whether it would be better to abandon the distinction between investment and consumption or instead adopt more inclusive definitions of both investment and infrastructure.
This paper introduces a new framework for understanding the persistence of the motherhood penalty by emphasizing the role of on-call care. Using a pseudo-panel event study based on the 2003-22 American Time Use Survey (ATUS), we quantify how different types of parental care time contribute to post-childbirth labour market outcomes. Our results show that gender gaps in on-call care, not primary childcare, drive the long-term reduction in mothers' paid work. In the first 2 years after birth, declines in paid work are largely explained by primary interactive childcare. Over time, however, on-call care becomes the dominant factor. This shift is not accounted for in existing labour market models, nor in standard policies such as parental leave and childcare subsidies. We argue that the persistent economic costs of gender inequality can be better understood and addressed by integrating the temporal and unpredictable nature of caregiving into economic theory and policy design.
In the years following the Covid-19 pandemic, multilateral organizations at both international and regional levels have issued numerous policy documents on the care economy. This surge in attention reflects the growing prominence of the issue in policy debates, building on decades of feminist advocacy. However, questions remain regarding the varying approaches and frameworks adopted, as well as the extent to which these policies incorporate proposals advanced by gender advocates. This paper represents a first attempt at a comparative assessment of care economy policy approaches and advocacy strategies at the multilateral level through the lens of feminist economics, with a focus on the UN and the World Bank. The empirical analysis draws on published policy documents from the 2010s to the 2020s and is structured around three key dimensions: the problem statement and rationale for policy intervention, the stated policy objectives, and the emerging policy roadmap for achieving these goals. I examine the extent to which the UN and World Bank policy frameworks have converged toward a feminist 'transformative care agenda' and analyse the conceptual underpinnings and narratives shaping their approaches. I argue that these frameworks have significant implications for concrete policy proposals and substantive outcomes. While there is a discernible convergence toward a transformative care agenda at the multilateral level, I highlight key divergences, tensions, and shortcomings that persist.
This paper is the first to evaluate the gendered effects of child grants on patterns of time allocation across SNA (System of National Accounts) production work, household maintenance, care work, leisure, self-care, and other non-work activities. Using the 2010 South Africa Time Use Survey, I estimate time allocation patterns for grant-eligible single parents aged 20-54. I address the endogeneity of the key grant receipt parameter using a probit model with an originally-constructed instrumental variable, regional median travel time to the welfare office. I find that single parents living in grant recipient households reduce SNA production work. Single parents primarily redistribute their reduced SNA production work time to household maintenance and care work. This rise in household maintenance and care work leads to an overall increase in total work time, especially of single mothers.
This paper provides a conceptual overview and exploration of formal and informal care provisions and their implications on economic measurement related to market and non-market care activities. Individuals with easy access to care provisions are often in positions of power and control policy decision-making, budgetary purse strings, and even the production of official economic statistics. Individuals providing formal and informal care often lack the adequate power in decision-making processes that influence social policy and resource allocation in a way that would advantage them. This division between having the privilege of care and having power to allocate public and private care resources may help explain why when the division between caregivers and policy-makers is greater, societies often struggle to pass legislation and policies that support informal provisions of care. This gap can also help explain the lack of economic measurement as it relates to care activities, especially informal care. In this paper, we define care privilege, develop methods for measuring the economic activity of care at three different levels: the individual, the household, and the community, and discuss how these different measures influence our perceptions of care, care privilege, and the economic value of care to society.
Across OECD countries, there is a conundrum in aged care policy-how to meet societal expectations of accessible, high-quality aged care, at the same time as making aged care economically sustainable. We use a different starting point from those commonly used to integrate care provision into macroeconomic theory and policy. One of the authors of this paper co-developed the well-established framework for person-centred care (PCPF) for which there is an existing evidence base for its application in care settings. Here, we explore the implications of the PCPF for care policy. We demonstrate, through our own action research and international examples, how the PCPF when applied to the larger system, can re-establish a positive relationship between quality care and productivity through a relational economics. We make the case that such action research develops and maintains capabilities through critical social infrastructure for which greater investment in R&D is required.
The United States is currently facing a worker shortage in the long-term care sector, which is only expected to worsen as the population ages. Immigration policy is often proposed as a solution. In this paper, we show that immigrants are already highly represented in eldercare occupations, particularly in certain types of work and in certain areas of the country. We also show that in this sector, immigrants tend to earn 10% higher wages than natives, a result suggestive of high immigrant productivity. Further analysis reveals that foreign-born eldercare workers have characteristics associated with higher-quality care; they are older and tend to have more years of education than US-born eldercare workers. An Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition reveals that about 30% of the immigrant-native wage gap in this sector cannot be explained by standard observable factors. Overall, our findings suggest that immigrants are not only capable of doing eldercare work, but are likely more productive in these roles, making immigration policy a promising tool for addressing eldercare labour shortages now and in the future.
