Scholarship & Research
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Item National forest timber harvest variability(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1984) Forrester, Albert AyersIt has long been the goal of the United States Forest Service to stabilize timber dependent communities via a sustained yield, even-flow of timber from the National Forests. This policy has been based upon the assumption that timber markets have a destabilizing impact on these communities since private timber operators harvest at varying rates. This paper examines the question of whether or not private harvests are more variable than Forest Service harvests. Statistically, it is shown that Forest Service harvests are not stable and that private harvests are much less variable than national forest harvests. The focus of the paper then turns to an explanation of the variability in Forest Service harvests. Timber sales policies and the Forest Service contract are given as two possible sources of this variability. Regression analysis shows that, for the most part, timber harvests are not significantly related to sales and that apparently there is enough slack in the timber contracts to allow operators time to alter harvest rates according to changes in the economy. Econometric analysis shows that harvests do respond to changes in the economy. Thus harvest variability is not solely due to variability in Forest Service timber sales. Because of the apparent lack of rigidity in timber contracts, evidenced by contract extension, termination, alteration, and slack in the contract period, it is proposed that firms harvesting national forest timber will behave differently than firms harvesting under private contracts. Specifically, it is proposed that firms reduce harvest rates dramatically when prices fall, perhaps ceasing operations altogether, and increasing harvest rates when prices rise. Econometric analysis shows that such behavior in national forest timber supply is present. The evidence provides a partial explanation of national forest harvest variability.Item Does wilderness matter? : an examination of the political causes and economic consequences of wilderness designation(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2013) Regan, Shawn Edward; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Randal R. Rucker.;This thesis improves upon previous cross-sectional analyses of the economic effects of wilderness designation in two important ways. First, a political economy analysis of wilderness selection is developed using data from a comprehensive inventory of all potential wilderness areas managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Second, the economic consequences of wilderness designation are examined using a novel county-level panel data set of western U.S. counties from 1969 to 2010. The Forest Service and Congress are found to act as arbitrators of competing interest groups by designating areas with high levels of wilderness attributes but low development potential. Wilderness designations are found to not have a significant effect on levels of per capita income, population, employment, or average wage per job. These finding are robust to a broad range of specifications. The results suggest that the Forest Service and Congress have made wilderness selection decisions that do not impose significant costs on local economies.Item An analysis of bidding behavior at U.S. Forest Service timber auctions(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1996) Brenner, Brenda Lee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Randal R. Rucker.The Forest Service is mandated to receive a "fair market value" for its timber. Noncompetitive bidding may lead to lower than fair market values of timber and thus large losses in federal revenues. Knowing where noncompetitive bidding is most likely to occur may allow the Forest Service to effectively mitigate noncompetitive bidding and antitrust resources to be allocated efficiently. A multi-stage procedure is developed for identifying the market areas where bidding is least competitive. The third stage of the procedure introduces an innovative method for analyzing the competitiveness of bidding behavior. This new method compares the differential impacts of regular and nonregular bidders on bid price. The application of the multi-stage procedure to nine forests in Washington and Oregon reveals noncompetitive bidding may have been present in two forests between 1973 and 1981. Analyses of later years (1985-90) reveal, however, that the noncompetitive bidding that may have been present in earlier years greatly diminished.