Timber Prices, Bioenergy Price, and Harvest Behaviour in Sweden : A Time-Series Analysis of Forest-Sector Equilibrium

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines the relationship between timber prices, bioenergy price, and harvest behavior in the Swedish forest sector within a forest-sector equilibrium framework. Using annual national time-series data for Sweden covering the period 1995–2024, the study analyzes both aggregate harvest removals and the allocation of harvested biomass across sawtimber, pulpwood, and bioenergy. The empirical analysis combines baseline harvest regressions, seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) allocation models, and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) error-correction models (ECM). The results show that aggregate harvest removals are primarily associated with standing timber stock, harvesting costs, and storm disturbances, while timber and bioenergy prices exhibit relatively weak associations with total harvest levels. In contrast, relative prices play a more significant role in determining output allocation across forest products, consistent with the joint-production nature of forestry. The ARDL and ECM results further indicate the existence of a stable long-run equilibrium relationship among harvest removals, prices, forest conditions, and disturbances. The findings suggest that the Swedish forest sector behaves as a biologically constrained and integrated multi-output system in which market adjustment occurs more strongly through changes in product allocation than through large changes in aggregate harvest levels.