Economic Adjustment and the Forestry Sector: Does Removing the Log Export Ban Matter Much?

This paper is an attempt to describe empirically, and quantify when possible, the trade-off between deforestation and efficiency under Indonesia's log export regime. It asks whether the log export ban has encouraged less efficient use of domestic logs and whether it has helped to reduce the rate of round wood extraction. The empirical study suggests that the former did occur during the LEB and APKINDO regime of 1985-1997, while the latter cannot be shown empirically.