Commodities Research Unit

These characteristics include identical or near-identical products, prices determined by a free market, a large number of fragmented/atomistic producers, few barriers to entry, low profit margins, the existence of a lorig production chain between minit (or recycliiig) and the final consumer. The lead (and copper, ziiK and tin) industry has exhibited most of these features for well over a century. Several of the ideas in this section have been derived from the Commodities Research Unit (CRU) (1985). 

Commodities Research Unit (CRU), The Marketing of Metals, London, 1985. 

Direct and indirect costs are compared public and private costs are estimated at 3.5-4 times those for EPA in 1981. Among the former is loss of innovation. While several studies of this factor have been made for the industry, their reliability is questioned, due in part to lack of sound data prior to 1976. No mention was made of economic trends affecting corporate expenditures for research and development, or of trends in the maturation of industrial chemistry itself. Other indirect costs, such as concentration of manufacture within the industry, may result from costs of compliance, especially for smaller manufacturers. These factors were not compared with extrinsic factors, such as shifts in feedstock supply and commodity manufacture from the United States to other countries. 

With the growth of the polymer industry, competition has become fiercer and selling prices lower. In view of the competitive situation, priorities of industrial research have changed. It has become imperative to produce the same commodity polymers with better properties at reduced cost by improved processes and in larger units. To stay ahead,... 

In the 1930 s, crop yields in the United States, England, India, and Argentina were essentially the same. Since that time, researchers, scientists, and a host of federal policies in each country have helped farmers dramatically increase yields of corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, and most other major commodities. Today, fewer farmers feed more people than ever before. This success, however, has not come without costs. 

Modern agricultural research commonly proceeds as if yields, per unit of scarce inputs, were the central concern of the farmer. The assumption is enormously convenient like the commercial wood of scientific forestry, the generic, homologous, uniform commodities thus derived create the possibility both of quantitative comparisons between the yield of different cultivation techniques and of aggregate statistics. The familiar tabulations of acres planted, yields per acre, and total production from year to year are usually the decisive measure of success in a development program. 

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