Commodity economics is the systematic scientific treatment of commercial commodities. The approach is regarded as having been founded by Johann Beckmann, whose two-volume Vorbereitung zur Waarenkunde (1793/1800; “Introduction to commodity science”) laid out its foundations in the late 18th century[2]. In English and French (l'économie des produits de base), the term designates a particular focus within economics, while Italian merceologia denotes commodity economics as an academic subject ta…