Accounting for India’s Forest Wealth

Giles Atkinson and Haripriya Gundimeda (hpriyags@yahoo.com)
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Haripriya Gundimeda: Madras School of Economics

Working Papers from Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India

Abstract: In this paper, we account for forest wealth in India. Changes in the timber and carbon wealth embodied in these forests are related to important green national accounting aggregates such as genuine saving and the change in wealth per capita. Important accounting issues include the timing of carbon releases, which occur when forests are disturbed, as well as the valuation of these releases. Our empirical findings suggest that while India’s forest wealth is substantial, net changes in this wealth are arguably not so large at least in relation to GNP. However, when viewed in the context of the wealth-diluting effects of population growth this implies a far larger additional savings effort is required to cover the (net) loss in forest values than otherwise appears to be the case. Finally, we examine ways in which the accounting approach that we adopt can be reconciled with approaches which stress conserving forest wealth.

Keywords: wealth; forest; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2006-02
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Accounting for India's forest wealth (2006)
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