Lumber And Lumber Products Commodity Study

Trends of wood use in the furniture and fixtures industry are examined. Wood consumption statistics from the 1972 Census of Manufactures are used to update prior Forest Service surveys, and separate estimates are made for 1977 consumption. A methodology for making up-to-date estimates of wood usage is also presented.

Scarcity of natural resources has been of concern to industrial societies since Malthus developed his theory of population growth and resource use in the late 18th century. Barnett and Morse, in 1963, tested the widely held premise that natural resource commodities are becoming more economically scarce. They concluded that of all major natural resource commodities-agricultural, mineral, and timber-only timber commodities were increasing in economic scarcity. In particular, sawlogs have shown consistent increases in economic scarcity since the late 1800's. Data were prepared for the Barnett and Morse study by Potter and Christy and subsequently updated by Potter and Christy and subsequently updated by Manthy to 1973. This paper extends and expands these data series on timber commodities. Specifically, information will be presented on one indicator of economic scarcity-trends in real prices (prices deflated by the general producer price index). (Author).

Tables summarize volume and values of United States trade in wood products from 1978 to 2005. Import and export data are shown for 21 commodities aggregated from over 1,700 wood products. Data were obtained from an earlier report by Chmelik and others and the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Trade in each commodity is delineated by trading partner and shipments through each of four regional aggregations of U.S. customs districts. Data show that the United States is a net importer of wood products and Canada is the dominant supplier.