Export Restrictions on Minerals and Metals: Estimation and Analysis of Supply Chain Effects from Zimbabwe’s Chromium Ore Export Ban

Export restrictions on industrial raw materials are increasingly common. This paper is the first in a multipart series that analyzes the impacts of export restrictions on supply chains, with focus on countries’ use of export bans on minerals and metals to develop downstream domestic industries. The paper proposes a modeling approach that estimates supply chain effects of upstream export restrictions, illustrated with an application to the Zimbabwe export ban on chromium ore in 2011-2015 and again in 2021. The analysis finds that the 2011 export ban decreased total chromium ore production in Zimbabwe (45 percent) and lowered the price of domestic chromium ore (18.1 percent) due to the elimination of export destinations. This led to an increase in the quantity of ferrochromium produced (15.2 percent) in Zimbabwe as more inputs were exclusively available at a cheaper price. Zooming out, the chromium ore and ferrochromium producer price changes increased average world prices of ferrochromium (used primarily as inputs in stainless steel production) by a negligible 0.04 percent, illustrating that the supply chain segment targeted by the restriction and the exporter’s share of global supply influence the global impact of the export restriction.