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Commodity Supply Disruptions Under Geopolitical Risk: A General Equilibrium Assessment

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Review of International Economics

Published online on

Abstract

["Review of International Economics, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThis paper studies how commodity supply disruptions propagate through the global economy under geopolitical risk. We develop a multi‐country, multisector general equilibrium model in which primary commodities are produced from country‐specific natural resources and used as essential inputs in downstream production. The framework captures the distinctive features of commodity markets: geographically concentrated supply, low supply and demand elasticities, and unidirectional propagation from natural resources to primary goods and final sectors. Calibrating the model to global production, trade, input‐output, and commodity end‐use data, we conduct three counterfactual exercises using China as the main empirical laboratory. A Chinese rare‐earth export ban generates substantial leverage over U.S. dual‐use industries but also feeds back to China's own high‐tech sectors through global value chains. Systematic stress tests of China's commodity imports identify vulnerabilities and show how targeted policies can mitigate losses. In a stylized geopolitical fragmentation scenario, symmetric commodity restrictions disproportionately harm the U.S.‐aligned bloc relative to China, and bloc‐level coordination amplifies these costs substantially beyond what bilateral restrictions alone would impose. The results show that commodity vulnerability is an equilibrium object shaped by substitution, resource constraints, and downstream propagation.\n"]