A Model of National Forest Timber Supply and Stumpage Markets in the Western United States

Abstract

This paper presents an aggregate regional model of the National Forest timber supply process and the interaction of National Forest and non-National Forest supply in the determination of regional stumpage prices and harvest volumes. Endogenous elements of National Forest supply include establishment of the appraised price, bid price, volumes sold and unsold, the uncut volume under contract, volumes harvested, and harvest price. Components of the model describe the distribution of volumes sold and harvested by bid price and contract duration classes. Estimation results for bid price relations in several western regions indicate that prices bid for stumpage depend on a short (one-year) distributed lag in product prices and production costs. Application of the full model in the Douglas-fir region suggests that short-term National Forest supply may be more elastic with respect to harvest price than industrial private supply. Model simulations track actual behavior in the Douglas-fir region stumpage market with reasonable accuracy over the period of extreme price and volume movements during 1977-1985. Model projections also appear reasonable and internally consistent in a projection to the year 2000 under a less volatile product market scenario. For. Sci. 35(2):401-424.