David Evison

A Forest-Profit Expectations Dataset for New Zealand, 1990–2008

In this paper, we construct a dataset of annual expected forest profits in New Zealand from 1990–2008 at a fine spatial resolution. We do not include land values in any of our profit calculations. We estimate four measures of expected forest profits based around net present value (NPV), land expectation value (LEV), equal annual equivalent (EAE), and internal rate of return (IRR). Our estimates of expected profits are based on the assumption that land owners form their expectations adaptively; that is, they use recent data on prices and costs to form expectations. We illustrate our data by showing regional variation in each of our measures, changes over time in NPV on land in forest in 2008, and variation in NPV over space in 2008. The final dataset, working datasets, and the code used in this work are publicly available to the research community and can be accessed from the authors’ website: http://www.motu.org.nz/building-capacity/dataset/u10073_forest_profit_expectations_dataset.

Using a production approach to estimate economic weights for structural attributes of Pinus radiata wood

Abstract We modeled the technical relationships between volume of Pinus radiata D. Don structural lumber (with stiffness>8 GPa) and log attributes using a stochastic frontier approach. The production models were Cobb–Douglas and Translog, while the log attributes were small end diameter (SED), wood stiffness (STF), and largest branch (LBR); however, the effect of the latter trait was not significant (p>0.05). Economic values of log traits were represented by their values of marginal product (VMP). The coefficients for the Cobb–Douglas frontier were statistically significant and the model met most of the production theoretical properties. VMP derived from the Cobb–Douglas were 2.23 NZ

A method for comparing investment returns from major rural land uses including forestry

/cm for SED and 16.88 NZ

Incorporating economic weights into radiata pine breeding selection decisions

/GPa for STF. The Translog frontier coefficients were also significant (p<0.05) and VMP derived from this model were 1.67 NZ

The impact of carbon credits on New Zealand Radiata pine forestry profitability

/cm for SED and 9.15 NZ

Developing an Intelligent Tutoring System for palm oil in ASPIRE

/GPa for STF. Thus, for the analyzed production stage, changes to SED and STF were relevant for improving log value recovery above MSG8+. Technical efficiency derived from the frontiers allowed to identify and characterize the best logs to produce structural grades with stiffness of 8 GPa or higher.