Are Log Markets Competitive? Empirical Evidence and Implications for Canada-U.S. Trade in Softwood Lumber

Kurt Niquidet and Gerrit van Kooten

No 2004-04, Working Papers from University of Victoria, Department of Economics, Resource Economics and Policy Analysis Research Group

Abstract: Under the U.S. Department of Commerce’s ‘changed circumstances’ review, it is possible that the countervail duty on Canadian lumber can be lowered if administered stumpage prices are based on transaction evidence appraisal – on actual auction data and regression analysis. The Province of British Columbia is implementing such a market-based approach to set stumpage fees, relying on timber auction data from the Small Business Forest Enterprise Program (SBFEP) and OLS regression. We employ SBFEP data to estimate a truncated regression model, comparing our estimates of stumpage fees with the OLS results. It turns out that the OLS approach is biased and likely results in overestimates of stumpage in some timber stands and underestimates in others. Further, we demonstrate that number of bidders has an important impact on bids, but that this could create even more problems for resolving the trade dispute.

Keywords: Canada-U.S. softwood lumber trade; truncated regression; timber auctions; public ownership of forestland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 Q23 Q27 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://web.uvic.ca/~repa/publications/REPA%20work ... kingPaper2004-04.pdf Final version, 2004 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: ARE LOG MARKETS COMPETITIVE? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CANADA-U.S. TRADE IN SOFTWOOD LUMBER (2004)
Working Paper: ARE LOG MARKETS COMPETITIVE? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CANADA-U.S. TRADE IN SOFTWOOD LUMBER (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rep:wpaper:2004-04

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Victoria, Department of Economics, Resource Economics and Policy Analysis Research Group Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by G.C. van Kooten ().