ABSTRACT
Not since Faustmann’s ground breaking 1849 treatise on the optimal forest rotation has an article been more influential to the field of forest economics than Samuelson’s 1976 article, “Economics of Forestry in an Evolving Society”. At the time Samuelson wrote that piece, a debate stirred among foresters and forest economists concerning the best time for a private, industrial, or public forest owner to harvest a stand of trees, or in its simplest sense, a tree. The arguments developed in the 1976 article clarified points of debate that had existed since Faustmann was an accountant in Germany searching for ways to levy forest property taxes more fairly. To this day Samuelson’s derivations and discussion have without doubt shaped the field of forest economics and effectively framed how economists look at forest policy questions and solutions. Largely, his purpose was to abolish the singular focus foresters of the time (particularly in connection with the National Forest Management Act of 1976) had on achieving the maximum sustained yield (MSY) of an (even aged) forest, a focus that ignores land rent. Even today, the concept of land rent as an opportunity cost of delaying harvesting is what essentially distinguishes how resource economists and non-economists think differently about the management of forest resources (e.g., see Amacher et al., 2009).
