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135 The Puzzle of Globalization
2 ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF
THE EMPIRICS OF GLOBALIZATION
«…..und was die Weltwirtschaft angeht, so ist sie verflochten.«– Kurt Tucholsky
2.1 NATURAL RESOURCES, TRADE AND GLOBALIZATION
Natural resources are embodied in intermediate and final goods. Furthermore, they are required
in many production processes. A workable definition of natural resources should focus firstly on
material stocks that exist in the natural environment, secondly on their economic usefulness
and thirdly on their scarcity. In their function as factors of production natural resources are not
tradable. But products that are outcomes of natural resources (e.g. agricultural commodities) are
tradable. Internationally traded natural resources have to be goods. Natural resources are often a
reason for trade rather than tradable goods in their own right [WTO, 2010, p 46]. Goods that are
counted as natural resources in trade statistics include fuels, mining products, forestry products
and fish. The characteristics that distinguish these goods from others are their exhaustibility, un-
even distribution across countries, negative externalities, while in other areas, their dominance
within many national economies and price volatility.
Figure 5 | World Merchandise Exports by Selected Commodities, 1980-2010 (in %)
Source: Own calculation based on WTO, Time Series on International Trade.