by 5-7 percentage points, and female labor force participation by 10 percentage points. Such a concerted reform push could lift average annual global potential growth by 0.7 percentage point for the next ten years.

The second is a slower-growth scenario. This could, for example, be triggered by a financial crisis that is followed by a deep recession. Deep recessions leave lasting damage to output, as a result of hysteresis effects. The latter include the loss of human capital (job skills) associated with longterm unemployment, and the loss of embodied technical progress implied by lower investment. World Bank (2018b) estimates that deep recessions have, on average, reduced potential growth in the following five years by 1 percentage points. These alternative growth paths make a significant difference to the projections, especially for the most income-elastic products (Figure 4).

In a **faster-growth scenario** , global metals consumption growth could be one-third higher than under the baseline scenario and remain virtually at its post-crisis rates. Global and EM7 energy consumption growth might also be 0.6-0.7 percentage point stronger than under the baseline scenario and could rise above post-crisis rates. Aggregate food consumption would be little changed from baseline, but there would be further substitution away from rice and wheat (with low income elasticities) toward maize and soybeans (with higher elasticities).

A **slower-growth scenario** would set back global metals consumption growth, relative to baseline, by one-third (1 percentage point) and global energy consumption growth by almost one-half (0.9 percentage point). Food consumption growth would, again, weaken only marginally with offsetting changes to rice and wheat compared to maize and soybeans.

The scenarios described above are stylized, and only show the impact of the baseline projections for income and population changes in the sample of countries. Prospects may differ considerably from these projections, depending on trajectories for variables not included in the model. For example, population growth in SSA is expected to be much higher than for advanced economies and the EM7, although it is not captured in this scenario. As such, these estimates could be biased downwards. The estimates also do not allow for the endogeneity of prices. Endogenous relative price changes would moderate the changes, in either direction, from the baseline paths.

Despite implying a slowdown in growth, all the model-based projections show that consumption of energy and other commodities expands significantly from current levels. This, however, would in itself likely stimulate innovation and the adoption of new technologies, including efficiency improvements that further reduce consumption (Arezki and Matsumoto 2017). An accelerated uptake of more fuel-efficient technologies (e.g., electric vehicles and natural gas-powered commercial trucks) could also reduce crude oil consumption prospects (Cherif, Hasanov, and Pande 2017; International Energy Agency 2017). Low-carbon energy systems are likely to be more metal intensive than high-carbon systems, although the use of commodities varies greatly between different low-carbon technologies (World Bank 2017b).

# **5. Conclusion and policy implications**

Demand for most commodities may decelerate over the next decade as economies mature, infrastructure needs are met, and GDP and population growth slows. Much of future GDP growth will come in the services sector, which is not materials-intensive, while environmental and 15