ABSTRACT
Commodity forecasting became more common in the seventies, partly as a result of the greater uncertainties which were felt in the industrial countries about the future supply of important minerals, partly with the improvements in econometric techniques and the desire of practitioners to make the most of them. There are also qualitative forecasting methods, largely non-mathematical in their approach, which may, like the Delphi method, take the views of market experts, perhaps on both the demand and supply sides, and construct a forecast embodying their judgements. In forecasting prices, for example, the behavior of inventories causes difficulties. The world tin market has attracted its share of commodity forecasting, going back at least to the overoptimistic demand forecasts of the US Paley Commission in 1952. The forecasts of consumption by the end of the century imply a substantial increase in production.
