Global Trends of Steel and Long-Term Equilibrium Hypothesis across Leading Countries

Abstract

The aim of this study is twofold – on the one hand, to report a flow analysis based on historical trends of steel, from 1997 to 2008, across some leading geo-economic players; on the other, the analysis of long-term relationship between steel consumption and economic growth by the sensitivity of the demand of steel consumption to a change in the national income. Results show that steel production and consumption have different economic behaviour across some countries: in particular, China and Italy have higher average annual growth of the production of crude (CHN 9.75%; ITA 0.83%), steel crude use equivalent (CHN 8.37%; ITA 1.95%) and steel use finished products (CHN 9.38%; ITA 1.65%), whereas the US have higher average annual growth of imports (13.23%) and China of exports of semi-finished/finished steel products (20.38%). In addition, the estimated average elasticity of the consumption of steel on national income per countries, based on unidirectional causality that runs from national income to steel consumption, shows de facto positive values, except in UK economy. The analysis here provides main information on the industrial structure of countries and for designing policies aimed to support patterns of economic growth in current turbulent and fast-changing markets.