The Impact Of Forest Land Use On Regional Value Added

Rural development policies frequently target the enhancement of regional value-added activities. The effectiveness of such policies is typically analyzed in aggregate terms. Aggregate measures include total number of jobs created or total value-added impact. Regional economic development, however, is more complex and includes components such as income distribution, wage/skill levels of jobs created, and impacts on factor ownership. Evidence from other studies suggests that the Southern United States will experience significant increases in timber production intensity during the next 50 years. The connection between raw material production and processing has important effects on the creation and distribution of value added. In this paper, the impact of sustainable timber production on income distribution in a highly timber-dependent region was analyzed, using a social accounting matrix with mixed exogenous/endogenous accounts that specify the forward linkages of raw material production to primary and secondary wood processing.