United States - Coal rents (% of GDP)

Coal rents (% of GDP) in United States was 0.138 as of 2019. Its highest value over the past 49 years was 0.742 in 1982, while its lowest value was 0.064 in 1994.

Definition: Coal rents are the difference between the value of both hard and soft coal production at world prices and their total costs of production.

Source: Estimates based on sources and methods described in "The Changing Wealth of Nations: Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium" (World Bank, 2011).

See also:

Year Value
1970 0.093
1971 0.104
1972 0.110
1973 0.122
1974 0.248
1975 0.575
1976 0.583
1977 0.547
1978 0.403
1979 0.414
1980 0.534
1981 0.719
1982 0.742
1983 0.385
1984 0.307
1985 0.306
1986 0.200
1987 0.108
1988 0.141
1989 0.182
1990 0.196
1991 0.176
1992 0.138
1993 0.066
1994 0.064
1995 0.186
1996 0.197
1997 0.183
1998 0.163
1999 0.127
2000 0.140
2001 0.212
2002 0.151
2003 0.154
2004 0.321
2005 0.265
2006 0.276
2007 0.251
2008 0.700
2009 0.330
2010 0.465
2011 0.579
2012 0.366
2013 0.279
2014 0.226
2015 0.154
2016 0.135
2017 0.181
2018 0.197
2019 0.138

Development Relevance: Accounting for the contribution of natural resources to economic output is important in building an analytical framework for sustainable development. In some countries earnings from natural resources, especially from fossil fuels and minerals, account for a sizable share of GDP, and much of these earnings come in the form of economic rents - revenues above the cost of extracting the resources. Natural resources give rise to economic rents because they are not produced. For produced goods and services competitive forces expand supply until economic profits are driven to zero, but natural resources in fixed supply often command returns well in excess of their cost of production. Rents from nonrenewable resources - fossil fuels and minerals - as well as rents from overharvesting of forests indicate the liquidation of a country's capital stock. When countries use such rents to support current consumption rather than to invest in new capital to replace what is being used up, they are, in effect, borrowing against their future.

Limitations and Exceptions: This definition of economic rent differs from that used in the System of National Accounts, where rents are a form of property income, consisting of payments to landowners by a tenant for the use of the land or payments to the owners of subsoil assets by institutional units permitting them to extract subsoil deposits.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: The estimates of natural resources rents are calculated as the difference between the price of a commodity and the average cost of producing it. This is done by estimating the world price of units of specific commodities and subtracting estimates of average unit costs of extraction or harvesting costs (including a normal return on capital). These unit rents are then multiplied by the physical quantities countries extract or harvest to determine the rents for each commodity as a share of gross domestic product (GDP).

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Environment Indicators

Sub-Topic: Natural resources contribution to GDP