Ateş, Erdem

This study examines trade concentration, network structure, and China-centered import dependency in three selected rare-earth metal and compound categories (HS 280530, HS 284610, and HS 284690) over 2012–2024. Using bilateral trade data from the CEPII BACI database, the analysis combines concentration ratios and the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index with bilateral trade-flow networks, centrality measures, cosine-similarity networks, and country-level China Import Dependency Ratios (CID). The results reveal substantial product-level heterogeneity. Trade concentration and network structure evolve differently across the three categories, while changes in similarity-network density, community structure, and modularity are particularly pronounced for HS 284690. Trade shares and network centrality do not always move in parallel, indicating that market concentration and structural network position capture distinct dimensions of trade organization. Country-level dependency analysis further shows increasing reliance on China across all three product categories: both mean CID and the share of importing countries sourcing at least 50% of their imports from China increase between 2012 and 2024. Overall, the findings demonstrate the value of integrating concentration, network, and dependency measures to identify product-specific patterns of geoeconomic exposure in selected rare-earth metals and compounds.

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Göçmen Polat, Elifcan; Yücesan, Melih; Gül, Muhammet

The rapid development of innovative technologies, population growth, shifting resource management patterns, and decarbonization challenges are expected to increase the demand for raw materials labeled as critical in the following years. The increasing concerns have led to evaluate the critical raw materials (CRMs) with high economic importance and supply risk. In this context, this paper aims to develop a conceptual methodology to identify CRMs in Turkey. The methodology integrates a multi-criteria decision-making method (MCDM) to provide the raw material criticality matrix regarding various criteria, the EU (European Union) method, which represents supply risk and economic importance indicators, and the time series analysis method, in which dynamic evaluation of materials over time instead of the static indicators. We first provide a Bayesian Best-Worst method (B-BWM) and TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) based model for the criticality matrix, which enables evaluations of participated experts to be combined to reveal the weights of the criteria and sub-criteria from a probabilistic point of view without loss of knowledge. The main and sub-criteria include supply risk and economic importance, which are frequently studied in the literature, but also environment, price, secondary production, and socio-economic indicators are evaluated in the criticality matrix. Then, exponential smoothing forecast, one of the Time Series Analysis models, which determine the element criticality in the perspective of future years with the data of import figures of Turkey, is superior to the other models. Finally, with some modifications, the EU criticality methodology is used to quantify the raw materials regarding each material associated with the sector applications and their value-added and supply disruptions. Thus, a comprehensive criticality list integrating the results of the three mentioned methods is important because Turkey's raw materials characterize many sectors. The findings should also interest practitioners and researchers as the detailed assessment of raw material criticality ensures a sufficient database for future studies.

AtıfScopus24·WoS14

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