Economic Geography of the Australian Mining Industry

Celal Bayari

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper is a discussion of the economic geography of Australia. It provides a history of foreign investment in mining, and discusses several resources booms that shaped the landscape of the continent and the role of governments (state, federal and territory governments) in this process. The paper presents a chronological account of the development of the Australian mining industry, the primary activities of which are the extraction, and export of unprocessed coal, iron, minerals and increasingly natural gas. The paper analyzes the industry’s interaction with foreign investment and government assistance (that is government spending in relation to the industry such as subsidies, loans and infrastructure construction etc). Australia’s trade and foreign investment environment have long been deregulated. The Australian mining industry has benefited from this deregulation. But its most spectacular period has been the “commodities super-cycle” of the 2000s-2010s. Overall, its contribution to exports has long typified the mining industry. The discussion herein draws attention to the applicability of the ‘eclectic theory’ in reference to foreign investment in mining. That is, investing mining MNEs (multinational enterprises) have three main types of ‘locational advantages’ in Australia, 1) volume of the availability of resources, 2) foreign investment regulatory environment and 3) government assistance that benefits the mining industry’s expansion.

Keywords: Australia; economic geography; mining; FDI; government; neoliberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E22 E6 E62 F11 F12 F13 F15 F18 F23 F41 F43 F55 F63 J1 J2 J4 J42 J53 J7 J8 K2 K21 L1 L11 L16 L5 L51 N1 N17 N2 N27 N5 N57 O1 O10 O11 O13 O19 P0 Q0 Q02 Q1 Q30 Q31 Q32 Q33 Q35 Q37 Q38 Q4 Q41 Q43 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-03-24, Revised 2015-07-25
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Published in Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 5.107(2016): pp. 552-566

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Related works:
Journal Article: Economic Geography of the Australian Mining Industry (2016)
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