Landowner Objectives and Nonindustrial Private Timber Supply

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Abstract
In this paper, nonindustrial private forest owners' objectives are empirically identified, and the link between ownership objectives and observed harvesting behavior is established by estimating a theoretically derived timber supply function. Survey data on 146 Finnish forest owners and their timber sales in 1987-1991 is used. Prior to estimation, forest owners are classified into four groups according to their ownership objectives by K-means clustering. Dummy variables indicating cluster membership are included in the supply function. According to the results, "multiobjective owners" harvest significantly more (m³/ha/yr) than the other owner groups (self-employed owners, recreationists, and investors), ceteris paribus. The results further indicate that the multiobjective owners' harvesting policy can be described as present-value maximizing while the other (single-objective) groups' harvesting behavior seems to reflect the effect of market imperfections, as assumed by the theoretical model of the study. For. Sci. 42(3):300-309.

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