Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents an overview of the New Zealand forestry sector and its place in the New Zealand and global economies, to familiarise those who are new to the sector. It describes the impact of intervention on factor prices, output, trade and utility. The book also describes a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model that we develop of the New Zealand economy, which is specifically designed with a focus on the forestry sector. It intentionally contains a considerable amount of technical detail on the structure of the model, the data, and the techniques of implementation. The book considers the issues detailed above by making use of a major recent development in the CGE literature, the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP). The GTAP is a global trade model, incorporating data on all of New Zealand's major trading partners.