WOOD UTILIZATION IN A CHANGING ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT: A SOCIAL ACCOUNTING PERSPECTIVE

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: MCINTIRE-STENNIS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1015624
• Project Start Date: Mar 1, 2018
• Project End Date: Feb 28, 2023
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
LOUISIANA TECH UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
RUSTON,LA 71272

Performing Department
Forestry

Non Technical Summary
The forestry complex underwent a rapid restructuring and reorganization as it emerged from the 2007 to 2009 "Great Recession." Recognizing intricate, and potentially messy, interactions between the environment, society, and economy in this post-recessional era requires novel levels of understanding. This is critical to transforming challenges into opportunities.This work will explore three primary avenues by which production forestry currently contributes to, and can potentially increase its impacts on, regional economies: 1) by bringing new money into the region via exports, 2) by developing new or substituting locally produced goods and services for imported inputs, and 3) by attracting value added manufacturing that can increase regional product. The primary means of assessing these contributions and impacts will social accounting matrixes of various regional economies.The studies associated with this project can provide interested parties- industry participants (landowners, loggers, mills), advocates (associations and organizations), as well as lawmakers- needed information when involved in policy and decision-making discussions. This could be particularly true in areas where Forestry's role(s) may not be fully understood.

Animal Health Component

80%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

20%

Applied

80%

Developmental

0%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
123	6110	3010	100%

Knowledge Area
123 - Management and Sustainability of Forest Resources;

Subject Of Investigation
6110 - Economy of the United States and sectors thereof;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;

Keywords

forest industries

economic contributions

social accounting matrix

input-output analysis

Goals / Objectives
Goal1: Assess the structure and performance of the forest industry and its sectors in economies at the local, state, and regional levels.Goal 2: Assess the activities of export driven clusters centered around forest-based industries.Goal 3: Evaluate the forest value chain to analyze the paths taken by wood flows across regions.Goal 4: Document how wood utilization impacts social institutions across rural and urban areas.

Project Methods
The primary means of analysis will be via input-output tables and social accounting matrixes. An input-output table quantifies transactions by how many dollars each sectorprocesses to selland purchases for use. The table separates processing sectors by rows and purchasing sectors by columns; every sector is considered to be both a processor and purchaser. Summing each row quantifies an industry's output, which includes sales to other production sectors along with those to final users.Beyond the input-output framework are the nonmarket income flows occurring in a region, such as households receiving wages and benefits from industries, dividends from corporations, and/or transfer payments from government. A social accounting matrix details these economic relationships via construction of submatrices in addition to that characterizing the traditional inter-industry flows found in an input-output table.The IMPLAN (Huntersville, NC) database will be a primary data supplier but will be "ground truthed" with locally collected data. Secondary data sources, such as state and local government data, will be obtained to improve a SAM's accuracy. Where appropriate, primary data will also be collected using surveys that follow Dillman's Tailored Design Method.

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience: Nothing Reported Changes/Problems:The faculty member who initated this project left this past year and the position will not be rehired be for the termination time frame. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The professor left responsible for this project and it is no longer active.

Publications

Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:Forest Landowners, loggers, industry Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results have been disseminated to clientele through peer reviewed journals and professional presentations at conferences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I have begun studying the economic depreciation of forestry equipment, which ties to Goals 1, 3, and 4. Colleagues and I intend to conduct companion studies regarding emerald ash borer (Goals 3 and 4). The economic contributions conference will take place in March, 2020 (Goal 1).

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal 1: I am working with partners across the US South to organize a conference in New Orleans, LA, to discuss economic contributions analysis of forest industries. Goal 2: The contributions of international trade were described in an article published in Journal of Forestry. Co-authors on the articel represented Louisiana State and Mississippi State Universities. We found the total contributions of foreign trade to the forest sector approached $50 billion in value added for the US economy. Interestingly, imports accounted for 8% to 10% of the total contributions; this was from transport industries, intermediaries, and services provided by port authorities. Goal 3 and 4: Colleagues at Louisiana Tech University and I submitted a paper that has been accpete for publication in Journal of Forestry on timber trespass and the adequacy of varying levels of restitution. We found the net present value of state-ordered "treble damages" could prove inadequate in some situations when compared to a traditional southern pine timber rotation. Emerald ash borer's detection was confirmed in Louisiana in 2015. Colleagues at Louisiana Tech and Louisiana State Universities and I modeled a scenariowhere ash mortality was assumed to follow a PERT-Beta distribution to kill essentially all Louisiana ash within25 yr. We concluded the present value of future timber mortalities wouldequateto a loss of timber economic contributions of 9.46 million dollars.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2019 Citation: McConnell, T.E., C. VanderSchaaf, J. Holderieath, and M. Crosby. 2019. Adequacy of timber trespass civil awards: A Louisiana case study. Journal of Forestry, in press.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2019 Citation: McConnell, T.E., C. VanderSchaaf, and S. Tanger. 2019. Potential changes to Louisiana hardwood timber industry economic contributions following emerald ash borer (EAB) invasion: An input-output approach. Journal of Economic Entomology, in press.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: McConnell, T.E., S. Tanger, and J. Henderson. 2019. Contributions of international trade to the United States forest sector and its import-export chain. Journal of Forestry 117(3):210-225.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2019 Citation: McConnell, T.E., and C. Altizer. 2019. Economic contributions of the North Carolina forest export cluster. Forest Science, in press.

Progress 03/01/18 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience is forest industry, loggers, landowners, trade associations, government, and non-government organizations with interests in forest management and sustainability. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The work is still in its early stages, but it is planned to use results in Extension and outreach activities, which could include publications, workshops/meetings, etc. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The main objective is to finalize results in both publication and presentation form for stakeholders and the general public.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal 1: An understanding of the North Carolina forest economy was gained. A structural path analysis of US forest products exports revealed the direct and indirect paths stimulated by trade with foreign countries. Goal 2: The impacts and contributions of wholesalers, freight transporters, and port service providers have been elucidated through work on understanding the holistic effects of international trade on the forest products industry. Goal 3: Forest Inventory and Analysis data have been mined and statistically analyzed in North Louisiana to better understand pine and hardwood utilization. Research is still condisered preliminary at this point. Goal 4: A social accounting matrix for the Ark-La-Tex region was constructed using data provided by IMPLAN. Key industries have been identified to date from the work.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: McConnell, T.E., C. VanderSchaaf, and S. Tanger. 2018. Potential losses in Louisiana hardwood sawtimber economic contributions following emerald ash borer invasion. Louisiana Agriculture 2018(2):14-15.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: VanderSchaaf, C., M. Blazier, T.E. McConnell, and J. Adams. 2018. Determining unthinned shortleaf pine plantation economic rotation ages in the Western Gulf. Forestry Research and Engineering: International Journal 2(3):132-138.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2018 Citation: McConnell, T.E., and C. Altizer. Economic contributions of the North Carolina forest export cluster.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2018 Citation: McConnell, T.E., S. Tanger, and J. Henderson. Contributions of international trade to the United States forest sector and its import-export chain.