An important policy decision in managing invasive species is how to allocate resources between activities aimed at preventing the arrival of new pests - including additional arrivals of existing pests - and activities aimed at reducing the damages done by species that are already here. We...

Public policy for managing invasive species has largely focused on preventive measures prior to detection (stage 1) and on the use of chemical/mechanical or biological control measures after the establishment and dispersion of the invasive species (stage 2). Optimal management policy depends...

In this paper we examine the issue of permanence in the context of sequestering carbon through afforestation. We develop a dynamic nested optimal control model of carbon sequestration associated with the decision to afforest a tract of land given there are uncertainties associated with fire and...

An RFF Workshop brought together experts from around the world to assess the feasibility of using biological sinks to sequester carbon as part of a global atmospheric mitigation effort. The chapters of this proceeding are a result of that effort. Although the intent of the workshop was not to...

The forest sector faces changing political paradigms and volatile policy measures. Policy makers rely on economic and biological models to inform them of the impacts and risks associated with both anticipated and unforeseen policies or shocks to the system. Assumptions about agents' knowledge of...

This study applies an intertemporal partial equilibrium model of the U.S. Forest and Agricultural sectors to assess the market, land use, and greenhouse gas (GHG) implications of biomass electricity expansion. Results show how intertemporal optimization procedures can yield different biomass...

Recent history has seen an increase in the utilization of partial equilibrium based forest sector models to identify potential impacts of various policies or timber market shocks. These models are particularly useful in that they employ economic theory to capture the interaction of supply and...