On optimal forest management: A bifurcation analysis

The paper examines the theory of optimal forest management with a view to describing its transition dynamics. In contrast to the literature's emphasis on long-run behavior of optimally managed forests, we focus on the nature of the optimal policy function, which describes the harvesting and replanting decisions that should be implemented currently, given an inherited forest. Bifurcation analysis is used to examine how the optimal policy function changes in response to variations in the parameters of the forestry model.