Implications of Increased European Timber Supply on Global Markets for Roundwood and Forest Industry Products : Causes and Consequences of Accelerating Tree Growth in Europe. Proceedings of the International Seminar

1999

S. 237-252

5 Abb.,6 Tab., 24 Lit.

Unselbständiges Werk

200059209

A partial equilibrium model was applied to the global forest sector in order to assess regional and global impacts of increased timber supply potential in Europe. The model uses recursive price-endogenous linear programming and deals with 8 geographical regions and 16 products. The base line projections of the model gave an average annual increase in global production of pulpwood and sawlogs of 1.0% until the year 2010, and the real price of sawlogs and sawnwood was found to remain approximately constant, whereas the prices of pulpwood and particles increased significantly during the first years, and then declined after year 2000. In the base line model run, the annual growth of the potential supply of industrial roundwood was assumed to be 1.4%. In two alternative model runs this annual growth was increased to respectively 2.0% and 2.7% to reflect a medium and high increase in forest growth in Europe (except in Scandinavia and Russia). Both increases lowered significantly the equilibrium prices for pulpwood and particles relative to the base line estimates, whereas the price of sawlogs remained stable. The increases did not lead to higher production of paper whereas th import of wood pulp decreased. A somewhat higher production of sawnwood and wood based panels in this region was combined with less imports. Possible improvements of the methodology include introduction of a price responsive timber supply, and empirical estimation of key parameters that determine capacity expansion, trade intertia, and technical change.