In the 8 years to 2011, resource prices rose enough to undo the effects of the previous 100-year decline.

Judge as of April 2011. True: a broad real (inflation-adjusted) commodity or resource price index (e.g. GMO's 33-commodity index, Grilli-Yang) shows that the rise from about 2002-2003 to 2011 returned real prices to roughly their level of about a century earlier, fully offsetting the long-term 20th-century decline. Mostly true: the index recovered most of the 100-year decline (roughly 80% or more). Mixed: it recovered about half. Mostly false: it rose sharply but recovered well under half of the century-long decline. False: there was no meaningful rise, or no prior long-term real decline existed.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 The Recent Rise in Commodity Prices: A Long-run Perspective | Bulletin – April 2007 Reserve Bank of Australia · April 2007

   “Specifically, commodity prices have fallen by roughly one-half relative to consumer or GDP prices over the past century, compared with a decline of about one-quarter relative to manufactured goods prices.”

2. E2 The Recent Rise in Commodity Prices: A Long-run Perspective | Bulletin – April 2007 Reserve Bank of Australia · April 2007

   “In contrast to this long-run trend decline, the overall real commodity price index has risen sharply since 2001, although its current level is still far below that of a century ago.”

3. E3 The Recent Rise in Commodity Prices: A Long-run Perspective | Bulletin – April 2007 Reserve Bank of Australia · April 2007

   “In contrast, the recent upturns in food and non-food agricultural prices have been comparatively small, and these prices are still well below their century average levels.”

4. E4 The Recent Rise in Commodity Prices: A Long-run Perspective | Bulletin – April 2007 Reserve Bank of Australia · 10 April 2007

   “the overall real commodity price index has risen sharply since 2001, although its current level is still far below that of a century ago.”

5. E5 The Recent Rise in Commodity Prices: A Long-run Perspective | Bulletin – April 2007 Reserve Bank of Australia · 10 April 2007

   “Specifically, commodity prices have fallen by roughly one-half relative to consumer or GDP prices over the past century, compared with a decline of about one-quarter relative to manufactured goods prices.”

6. E6 The Recent Rise in Commodity Prices: A Long-run Perspective | Bulletin – April 2007 Reserve Bank of Australia · 10 April 2007

   “In contrast, the recent upturns in food and non-food agricultural prices have been comparatively small, and these prices are still well below their century average levels.”

7. E7 The Long–Run Behavior of Commodity Prices: Small Trends and Big Variability IMF Staff Papers (International Monetary Fund) · 11 July 2002

   “The index of real industrial prices, after being somewhat stable over its first four decades, fell by four–fifths between 1900 and 1999, ending the century at are cord low (Figure 2).”

8. E8 The Long–Run Behavior of Commodity Prices: Small Trends and Big Variability IMF Staff Papers (International Monetary Fund) · 11 July 2002

   “The purchasing power over American resources of a basket of industrial commodities in 1999 is one–fifth the purchasing power yielded by that same basket of commodities in 1862.”

9. E9 The Long–Run Behavior of Commodity Prices: Small Trends and Big Variability IMF Staff Papers (International Monetary Fund) · 11 July 2002

   “First, while there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of about 1 percent per year over the last 140 years, little support is found for a break in the long–run trend decline in commodity prices.”

The RBA's April 2007 bulletin says real commodity prices fell by roughly one-half against consumer prices over the past century (E1). It adds that the real index had risen sharply since 2001 but in early 2007 was "still far below that of a century ago" (E2), and that agricultural prices were still well below their century averages (E3). The IMF paper confirms a long-run real decline but only covers data through 1999 (E7–E9). None of the evidence gives real index levels for 2008–2011, so it cannot show whether the rise up to April 2011 offset the century-long decline.