ABSTRACT
Forest economics and related research addresses an extremely wide range of forestry problems of concern to every region of the nation and to all sectors within the domain of public and private forestry. This chapter considers two approaches to understanding the scope of forest economics research, namely a problem orientation and a project objective orientation. Additional insight into the interests of forest economics and related research can be gained by reviewing the geographic and sector orientation of specific research projects. As for sector orientation of forest economics research, over two-thirds of the 83 sector statements specified in project descriptions were focused on private sector problems, especially the timber industry, the non-industrial private forests, and the non-timber industries. Forest economics research has played an ever-increasing role as a source of information sought by forest managers charged with the allocation of scarce resources.
