The Economics of Forest Land Use in Temperate and Tropical Areas

This paper presents economic rules for harvest timing when timber and nontimber goods, services, and ecological functions are produced from forest stands. Forests include stands that are heterogeneous in age, land quality, and distance to market. Rules for allocating land between forest and nonforest use are developed. Key land use margins are identified that are important to land use allocation in temperate and tropical regions (e.g., between unmanaged forest, forest management, and forest conversion). Processes that can change key land use margins are discussed and used to organize recent empirical and theoretical studies of regions where forest land use is in transition, such as where forest land is being converted to alternative nonforest land uses.