قیمت سایه ای و ناکارآمدی تولید منابع معدنی Shadow prices and production inefficiency of mineral resources

1. Introduction An increase in the consumption of minerals is inevitable, given the pace of economic development and modernization and the increase in production and energy consumption. Nevertheless, the current consumption patterns raise concerns from the perspective of the sustainability of mineral resources. In recent years, international efforts have been made to provide solutions for poverty on a global scale. The UN established the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, the main goal of which was to eradicate extreme poverty; thus, the targets were the poor in developing countries. With a deadline in 2015, the next goals mentioned are Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were discussed at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in 2012. One issue with the MDGs was that quantitative targets were not established, which may have hindered the effectiveness of the global program, and researchers have claimed that the SDGs can be distinguished from the MDGs by focusing the discussion on the latest research on the issue of sustainability (Jung et al., 2000; Griggs et al., 2013). In recent years, there has been a shift in terms of how to approach economic development and growth, and designing quantitative targets for sustainable development has become the focus in the latest debate. Dasgupta et al. (2015) noted that neither the SDGs nor their background documents explain how governments should judge whether the development programs they undertake to meet the goals are sustainable. Moreover, the authors indicated that economic growth should reflect growth in the Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI). At Rio+20, an Inclusive Wealth Report (Agarwala, 2012) was proposed as an aggregate measure that includes factors that may affect countries’ development and sustainability. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) essentially measures short-term economic activities; in contrast, the IWI attempts to evaluate the stocks of other assets, such as physical capital (including infrastructure), human capital and natural capital.