October 09, 2001
U.S. Timber Accounts, 1957-1997
Proceedings of the Symposium on Forest Environmental Value Accounting,
Chinese Academy of Forestry, 9-12 October 2001, Beijing.
In this paper, I calculate the value of standing timber in the continental United States. (The paper formed the main part of my undergraduate thesis.)
Abstract: In the most comprehensive review of green accounting efforts in the U.S. to date, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that extending national income calculations to account for natural resources and subsequently for ecological services is a worthwhile and desirable goal. The study furthermore sees the creation of timber accounts as the next logical step in the implementation of Integrated Environmental and Economic Satellite Accounts (IEESA). This paper attempts to compute such a set of timber accounts for the continental U.S. from 1957 to 1997. Over this period, the monetary value of U.S. timber increased both at a nominal and real level. In computing these accounts, three different approaches were used: the method previously applied by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), a new method suggested by the National Academy, and the standard present-discounted value method. Given the available data, this paper concludes that the latter approach is most appropriate for implementing U.S. timber accounts.
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Posted by Gernot Wagner on Tuesday, October 09, 2001.