Forgoing full value? Iron ore mining in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1954-2014

This paper offers a quantitative and contextual analysis of key variables related to the economic value of iron mining in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) over the last 60 years, including production, gross value, employment, wages, and government revenue. It also offers estimates of rent, defined as income over extraction costs including a 'normal' return to capital, in the NL iron ore industry for the only period for which there are adequate data, 2000-2014, and provides a critique of the 'concession system' that allows private royalty payments between iron ore mining companies and companies holding the leases on which they operate. Framed this way, with emphasis on the direct economic benefits of iron mining to the provincial state, the paper engages with longstanding concerns about the kind of economic growth that resource extraction encourages, as well as with research that emphasizes the role of rent - its magnitude and distribution between industry and government - in promoting or hindering regional development. It concludes by considering the policy implications of the analysis, in particular the potential for greater economic returns to the province in a globalized mining economy, and in the context of indigenous land claims in the mining area.