IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-97-42.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Forest Sector: Important Innovations

Author

Listed:
  • Sedjo, Roger

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

Unlike other resources such as petroleum, coal, and copper, forests are renewable. Yet, in many respects forests historically have been treated as a nonrenewable resource in that forest stocks were depleted or "mined" and loggers moved on to exploit other "deposits." The lands were often put to other uses, typically agricultural, or allowed to regenerate naturally. This paper looks at technical change in forest extraction, i.e., logging under a number of different conditions. It finds that, on average, labor productivity has been increasing in recent decades. However, total factor productivity in the US has declined in recent years. In addition, the study examines the tree-growing potential of plantation forestry. It finds that there is underway a substantial shift away from the harvesting of old-growth forests and toward intensive forest plantations. Plantations allow for high productivity in tree growing and are being used to offset decreased wood availability due to the inaccessibility and high costs of many old- and second-growth forests. The decreased accessibility reflects not only the impacts of past logging but, perhaps more importantly, the increase in forests in protected area set-asides. Additionally, natural forests face increasingly stringent regulations on logging and forest management activities. High-yield intensively managed forests, on well located, high productivity sites, offer the potential of obtaining high yields while using relatively small land areas by allowing the near full output potential of practices including species selection, fertilization and pest control. Finally, tree planting creates the opportunity to apply genetic improvements to the tree stock thereby further increasing growth productivity and allowing for control of tree characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Sedjo, Roger, 1997. "The Forest Sector: Important Innovations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-97-42, Resources for the Future.
  • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-97-42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-97-42.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stier, Jeffrey C., 1982. "Changes in the technology of harvesting timber in the United States: Some implications for labour," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 255-266, December.
    2. Robert M. Solow, 1974. "The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 12, pages 257-276, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. Roger A. Sedjo & Kenneth S. Lyon, 1983. "Long-Term Forest Resources Trade, Global Timber Supply, and Intertemporal Comparative Advantage," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1010-1016.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shunsuke Managi, 2010. "Productivity measures and effects from subsidies and trade: an empirical analysis for Japan's forestry," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(30), pages 3871-3883.
    2. Parry, Ian W.H., 1997. "Productivity Trends in the Natural Resource Industries," Discussion Papers 10585, Resources for the Future.
    3. Das, Gouranga Gopal & Alavalapati, Janaki, 2001. "Trade-mediated biotechnology transfer and its effective absorption: an application to the U.S. forestry sector," MPRA Paper 37254, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Feb 2002.
    4. Seeland, Klaus & Godat, Joël & Hansmann, Ralf, 2011. "Regional forest organizations and their innovation impact on forestry and regional development in central Switzerland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 353-360, June.
    5. Mälkönen, Ville, 2006. "Optimal forest conservation: The role of green-image demand and investments," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 51-73, March.
    6. Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2003. "Productivity in the Forest Products Sector: A Review of the Literature," CSLS Research Reports 2003-02a, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    7. Terheggen, Anne, 2010. "The new kid in the forest: the impact of China's resource demand on Gabon's tropical timber value chain," MPRA Paper 37982, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Hoang, Thi Hong Van & Mahalik, Mantu Kumar & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Energy consumption, financial development and economic growth in India: New evidence from a nonlinear and asymmetric analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 199-212.
    2. Dale W. Henderson & Stephen W. Salant, 1976. "Market anticipations, government policy, and the price of gold," International Finance Discussion Papers 81, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Grimaud, Andre & Rouge, Luc, 2003. "Non-renewable resources and growth with vertical innovations: optimum, equilibrium and economic policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2, Supple), pages 433-453, March.
    4. Hadi Sasana & Imam Ghozali, 2017. "The Impact of Fossil and Renewable Energy Consumption on the Economic Growth in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(3), pages 194-200.
    5. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Fisher, Anthony C, 1981. "Hotelling's "Economics of Exhaustible Resources": Fifty Years Later," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 65-73, March.
    6. Wei Wang & Kehui Wei & Oleksandr Kubatko & Vladyslav Piven & Yulija Chortok & Oleksandr Derykolenko, 2023. "Economic Growth and Sustainable Transition: Investigating Classical and Novel Factors in Developed Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-15, August.
    7. Barbier, Bruno & Bergeron, Gilles, 2001. "Natural resource management in the hillsides of Honduras: bioeconomic modeling at the micro-watershed level," Research reports 123, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Florian Fizaine, 2021. "La croissance verte est-elle durable et compatible avec l’économie circulaire ? Une approche par l’identité IPAT," Post-Print hal-03884377, HAL.
    9. Hänsel, Martin C. & Quaas, Martin F., 2018. "Intertemporal Distribution, Sufficiency, and the Social Cost of Carbon," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 520-535.
    10. Schilling, Markus & Chiang, Lichun, 2011. "The effect of natural resources on a sustainable development policy: The approach of non-sustainable externalities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 990-998, February.
    11. Tisdell, Clement A., 2000. "Globalisation, WTO and Sustainable Development," Economics, Ecology and Environment Working Papers 48009, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    12. Roma, Antonio & Pirino, Davide, 2009. "The extraction of natural resources: The role of thermodynamic efficiency," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2594-2606, August.
    13. Gijsbert T.J. Zwart, 2009. "European Natural Gas Markets: Resource Constraints and Market Power," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(1_suppl), pages 151-166, June.
    14. Marsh, Sally P. & Llewellyn, Rick S. & Powles, Stephen B., 2006. "Social costs of herbicide resistance: the case of resistance to glyphosate," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 139881, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    15. Nicolas Bouleau, 2013. "The Environmental Violence of Volatility," CIRED Working Papers halshs-00835669, HAL.
    16. Mar Rubio & Mauricio Folchi, 2005. "The apparent consumption of fossil energy as an indicator of modernisation in Latin America by 1925: a proposal using foreign trade statistics," Working Papers 5056, Economic History Society.
    17. Kenji Fujiwara & Ngo Van Long, 2012. "Optimal Tariffs On Exhaustible Resources: The Case Of Quantity-Setting," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(04), pages 1-17.
    18. Sadrieh, A., 2003. "Equity versus Warm Glow in Intergenerational Giving," Other publications TiSEM 89f19483-3c73-4838-854f-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Martínez-Sánchez, José F. & Pérez-Lechuga, Gilberto & Venegas-Martínez, Francisco (ed.), 2017. "Modelos para la toma de decisiones en la Ingeniería Económica y Financiera: Un enfoque estocástico Vol 3," Sección de Estudios de Posgrado e Investigación de la Escuela Superios de Economía del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Escuela Superior de Economía, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, edition 1, volume 3, number 017, January.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-97-42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.