Forest Rent Assessment for the Russian Economy Using Timber Sale Auctions Data
A.I. PYZHEV
Siberian Federal University, Svobodny av., 79, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia
Keywords: forest economy, natural resource rent, forest rent, econometric modeling, timber sale auction, open data
Abstract
The paper justifies a hypothesis that the timber sales auctions provide the most reliable data for the assessment of forest rent. It proposes an approach to estimate the forest rent in the Russian economy using the open data interface of governmental services on timber sale auctions. The weighted OLS method is used for the assessment of linear specification of forest rent taking the volume of logging as weighting variable. Both Paretian and Ricardian modeling of forest rent is performed depending on the main rent-productng factors: type of forest stand, trunk volume, and removal distance. The suggested approach has been tested on the dataset of timber sale auctions conducted in different Russian regions in 2013. The results of performed estimation show that the consolidated budget of the Russian Federation currently lacks three quarters of the actual forest rent.
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