Timber Production and Markets
Abstract
Timber production has been the foundation of active forest management for over a century. The science and economics of forest management were developed 1.50 years ago, but for years, the focus was on activity at the stand level, with very little attention to market phenomena such as price behavior, demand factors, substitution, and market structure. That has changed as advances in economic theory and methods have enhanced researchers' interest and understanding of the interaction between individual decisions (e.g., land allocation, management, harvest timing) and market outcomes (e.g., price, volumes, and trade patterns). The following chapters take the reader from these individual stand and forest-level decisions to the collective result of these decisions in the market place. The section begins with a treatment of the classical production problems in forest economics, including optimal stand management (chapter 4), and the application of modern production theory (chapters 5 and 7) and finance theory (chapter 6) to timber production.