A New Approach for Projecting Long Term Timber Supply and Inventory

The classical economic supply model and existing inventory projection techniques have several shortcomings. A conceptual model is proposed which projects the volume of inventory in each time period and uses exogenous estimates of 1) supply and demand to determine annual cut; 2) changes in acreage which could be specified to reflect changes in forest investment; and 3) net growth which could also be specified to reflect changes in investment in cultural practices. Short term supply is determined exogenously when the supply function is evaluated in each of the future time periods. The level of inventory is the maximum quantity available for long term supply. The percentage of this inventory taken in any future time period is determined by the supply and demand functions in the future short term market. The advantages of this model are: 1) annual cut is determined by economic as well as biologic variables; 2) it focuses attention on changing land use–an increasingly important management problem; 3) it is general enough to be adapted to a number of supply and inventory problems; and 4) it can focus attention on deficiencies in data or knowledge, thereby directing future research.

You must be logged in to download any documents. Please login (login accounts are free) or learn how to Become a Member