Conference Agenda

Decarbonization and digitalization have triggered a demand boom for critical minerals, yet resource-rich countries have historically struggled to turn finite natural resources into lasting, broad-based industrialization. This paper provides the first global analysis of contemporaneous export restrictions on raw materials and critical minerals and their role in promoting downstream industrialization in green value chains worldwide. I combine data on over 3,200 export restrictions across 60 countries with detailed trade and production data, and classify more than 700 HS codes and 41 minerals across 12 green value chains into production stages. Using newly constructed product-level input–output linkages, the value chain stage classification, and an event study design, I estimate both direct upstream and indirect downstream effects. The theoretical framework highlights how export restrictions can reallocate rents from upstream to downstream sectors via domestic price wedges—particularly in settings with strong input–output linkages. The empirical estimates strongly reflect this mechanism: while exports decrease, domestic mining production increases in the short-term driven by expanded downstream activity, which, eventually, leads to a net rise in upstream exports in the medium term. The results suggest that, under the right conditions, resource-rich countries can leverage export restrictions to support broader green industrialization.