Australia's Mining Boom: Impact on GDP

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Question 1 – Mining Boom
Due to increasing demand for natural resources such as coal and iron ore (Anthony, 2016) the mining sector of Australia boomed as it exported to countries such as China (Heath & Petrie, 2016). Thus, affecting the Australian Gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is “the market value of all final goods and services produced within a nation 's geographic borders during a period of time, usually a quarter or a year” (Layton, Robinson, & Tucker, 2016, p. 257) and helps to measure economic growth. The components of GDP are derived from the formula GDP = C + I + G + (X - M). That is, gross domestic product = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports - imports).
During the 3 phases of the boom spending created a chain reaction known as spending multiplier of further spending, which caused a greater cumulative change in aggregate demand beyond the initial change. Thus, affecting the GDP components and economy.
Phase 1 saw the prices for existing mining outputs to increase substantially as demand increased. According to (Phillips, 2016) prices for exports such as iron ore increased from $20 a tonne and peaked at about $170 a tonne. This demonstrated capital and labour investment …show more content…

Producers react by decreasing prices to clear stock. However, as production is cut back there may be a need to cut employees to reduce costs, which increases unemployment. This inturn reduces household income, and therefore household expenditure, which affects consumption. Also may affect terms of trade, which directly affects the purchasing power of domestic income, which affects supply of exports and imports. Thus, the price fall of iron ore from P1 to P2 has an aggregate reduction in demand on various AD components and GDP that shift the AD curve leftward from AD1 to AD2 that requires new equilibrium to create

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