Dataset for: Demand Observability of Critical Minerals under Statistical Discontinuity: Evidence from Japan's Special Steel Industry

This dataset provides the processed input data and main analysis outputs used in the manuscript "Demand Observability of Critical Minerals under Statistical Discontinuity: Evidence from Japan's Special Steel Industry." The dataset supports auditability of the reported proxy screening results, lag-sensitivity analysis, and expanding-window out-of-sample forecast evaluation. The Excel workbook contains processed special-steel-use demand series for Sb, Ni, Ni alloy, Co, W, and Mo; processed hot-rolled special steel production by steel category; a two-year lag-aligned analysis dataset; full Lag 0-Lag 3 screening results; main Lag-2 screening results with OLS and HAC t-values; yearly expanding-window forecast results; and model-level summary statistics. The lag-sensitivity boxplots reported in the supplementary material can be reconstructed from the Lag_full_results sheet. The original public statistics are not redistributed in their official raw formats. Instead, the compiled and processed datasets and main analysis outputs are provided with README and data sources/processing notes to support transparency and reproducibility. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 2.1 includes OLS t-values and HAC t-values in the screening outputs, adds full Lag 0-Lag 3 screening results for lag-sensitivity analysis, removes SUH and HMS from the analyzed steel category groups, and updates the README and data sources/processing notes. Separate boxplot-data sheets are not included because Figure S1 can be reconstructed from the Lag_full_results sheet.