Mineral commodity consumption and intensity of use re-assessed

The estimation results show that own-price elasticity is generally low while income, industry value-added/GDP, gross capital formation/GDP, and urban/total population may be more relevant drivers of per-capita metal consumption. On the other hand, the IOU hypothesis receives mixed support as it may not necessarily hold as a long-run equilibrium relationship, except for copper, nickel and zinc. Consequently, the IOU hypothesis, in its purest form, is not a universal tool to understand consumption trends.