Timber Mart-South began its price reporting in December, 1976. Until March of 1988, prices were reported monthly. Since the first quarter of 1988 prices have been reported quarterly.
There are several techniques for converting monthly series into quarterly series. Some researchers average the three months of a quarter to create a quarterly price series. Others take samples from the opening month, middle month, or closing month of each quarter.
In our research we have preferred taking middle-month samples from the monthly data (i.e., February’s price is the price for the first quarter, May is the price for the second quarter, etc.) when creating the quarterly series from the monthly reporting from 1976:12-1987:12.
