Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics

The forest ecosystem can be affected by forest distribution changes, management changes, and forest loss. Change to forest ecosystems is not only an environmental science problem but also an economic problem since both market and policy changes can influence forest ecosystems. The three chapters of my dissertation discuss the impacts of timber market change on forest distribution, explore how forest policy change affects forest planting investments in another region, and illustrate the relationship between overlapping tenure and forest loss. The first chapter examines the distribution and movement of forest species in the Eastern and Southeastern US with a spatial logistic model and assesses how natural and socioeconomic factors have influenced forest migration. In this research, we derive a 30-year presence/absence dataset from the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) database. The species distribution analysis suggests that besides climatological and geophysical factors, socioeconomic factors can also impact the probability of the presence of tree species. Furthermore, the impact of timber prices varies on trees of different ages. This research highlights how timber market variations can impact forest distribution by influencing landowners' management decisions. Our findings highlight the unintended environmental consequences of changes in timber and agriculture markets. The environmental policies, such as habitat protection and forest preservation, should take timber market consequences into consideration The second chapter examines how federal timber harvesting restrictions in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1990s resulted in an increase in softwood planting in the Southern US. This is one of few papers that discuss the change in investment in planting caused by a policy change in another region. This study develops a unique dataset of county-level loblolly planting derived from historical timber inventory data. The results indicate that the loblolly pl (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Brent Sohngen (Advisor); H. Allen Klaiber (Committee Member); Daniela A. Miteva (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Economics; Forestry