Economics of naturally regenerating heterogeneous forests

An economic model for naturally regenerating, heterogeneous forests is specified to yield both clear-cuts and continuous cover forestry endogenously. The model includes nonconvexities and any number of state variables but is, in its simplest form, a one-state variable problem. Clear-cuts with various rotation lengths and continuous harvesting appear as locally optimal solutions. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the local and global optimality of these two forest management types are obtained. Discounting is found to increase rotation length and to favor continuous harvesting. Initial state may determine the optimality of continuous forest cover versus clear-cuts. The relative value of large trees is an important factor in the optimality of different solutions. Analytical results are demonstrated by an empirical application.Peer reviewe