DYNAMIC ECONOMIC ANALYSES OF FOREST MANAGEMENT AND AGRICULTURAL-TO-ENERGY LAND-USE TRANSITIONS
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My dissertation consists of two lines of research. The primary line of research is my work on forest management. In addition, my dissertation also includes some preliminary work on a second line of research on agricultural-to-energy land-use transitions.Sustainable forest management is a complex dynamic problem, and an important issue worldwide. Forests supply the world’s population with a variety of forest products, including renewable products such as fruits, nuts, and maple syrup that can be harvested at more frequent intervals than the trees themselves. When there is both uncertainty and interdependent forest products, the interaction between these two phenomena leads to a complicated set of trade-offs; developing a model at this nexus is the primary innovation of my dissertation research. In particular, we develop a nested stochastic dynamic bioeconomic model of optimal forest management under uncertainty for interdependent products that differ in their growth cycles, rates of growth, lengths of growing periods, and potential harvest frequency. Our model enables us to assess the optimality of actual decisions made by forest managers and to develop a dynamic structural econometric model to understand the beliefs and perceptions that underlie and rationalize their management strategies. We apply our model to bamboo forests, which generate two interdependent products: bamboo shoots and bamboo stems. Our model has important implications for the sustainable management of forests worldwide. My dissertation also includes some preliminary work on a second line of research on agricultural-to-energy land-use transitions. Motivated by policies and markets that support the conversion of agricultural lands for distributed solar and wind generation, energy companies are leasing agriculture lands to site renewable energy infrastructure. We analyze the decision of farmers in New York to install solar or wind on their land using reduced-form discrete responses models and structural econometric models of dynamic games.