Productive and exchange scarcity: an empirical analysis of the US forest products industry

Abstract

This paper has two aims: clarification of several aspects of the debate on the appropriateness of various indicators of natural resource scarcity and the empirical analysis of the trends in the scarcity of forest products in the US. We test econometrically for trends in lumber prices in the long-run period 1800-1990, for trends in stumpage prices between 1910 and 1989, and for trends in productive scarcity indicators in the shorter 1947-1990 period. The empirical evidence indicates that the growth in the price of forest products as compared with other manufactured goods, and in the rental rate of timberland, levelled off during the post-war period in the US. These commodities are today much more scarce than in the historic past. The levelling off of the price of forest products after 150 yr of increase is consistent with economic theory that predicts that prices reach a plateau when extraction from old-growth forests is replaced by forest plantations and replanting in general. -from Authors Show more