Trends in Economic Scarcity of U.S. Timber Commodities.

Abstract : Scarcity of natural resources has been of concern to industrial societies since Malthus developed his theory of population growth and resource use in the late 18th century. Barnett and Morse, in 1963, tested the widely held premise that natural resource commodities are becoming more economically scarce. They concluded that of all major natural resource commodities-agricultural, mineral, and timber-only timber commodities were increasing in economic scarcity. In particular, sawlogs have shown consistent increases in economic scarcity since the late 1800's. Data were prepared for the Barnett and Morse study by Potter and Christy and subsequently updated by Potter and Christy and subsequently updated by Manthy to 1973. This paper extends and expands these data series on timber commodities. Specifically, information will be presented on one indicator of economic scarcity-trends in real prices (prices deflated by the general producer price index). (Author)