Analysis of the U.S. Copper Stock-in-use and the Relationship with Economic Output

Abstract

As the world's largest economy, the U.S. needs a lot of material input, to realize the sustainable development of its economy. Copper has excellent physical and chemical properties, widely used in various fields, which makes copper stock-in-use continue increasing. What is the trend of copper stock-in-use and which is the driving of the consumption of copper in the U.S.? Is there any relationship between the economic development index and the copper stock-in-use? In this paper, the average service life method and the method of depreciation of fixed assets are adopted to answer these questions. The results demonstrated that: (1) the total copper stock-in-use was a relative smooth trend during 1985-2015 in the U.S., and reached its peak in 2007 with 68.9 Mt, the amount of copper stock-in-use was almost at the “saturation†stage since then. (2) Before the year 2000, with the growth of GDP, the per capita copper stock-in-use also increased.