Effects of Public Financed Aid on Private Forest Investments: Some Evidence from Finland, 1963–2000

The relationship between private forest investments and public cost sharing (government financial aid to private investment projects) was first analysed with an economic optimization model. In the general case the model predicted that cost-sharing causes substitution between private funding of investments and public aid. However, in some special cases complementarities were not ruled out. Next, the model predictions were tested with a translog cost function specification of forest investment fund shares. Aggregate data from Finland in years 1963–2000 were used. The substitution and own price elasticities of purely private, subsidized individual and subsidized collective investments are derived from maximum likelihood estimates of translog system model, allowing for investment scale effects. Investments supported by public funding behave in a strongly complementary fashion to each other. Some substitution of subsidized private funding for non-subsidized private funding was found. Strong scale effects and forest investment incentives were found among forest owners in response to public investment aid.     

State policies for agroforestry in the United States

Existing state legislation and programs pertaining to agroforestry were determined in a 1995 nationwide survey of state- employed natural resource professionals in the United States. At that time, only 20 of the 50 states had legislation that could be identified as pertaining to any of the five major agroforestry practices: windbreaks, riparian buffers, alley-cropping, silvopasture, or forest farming. Nine states had direct legislation specifically referring to one or more of these agroforestry practices, while the remaining 11 states had indirect legislation that could be construed as pertaining to agroforestry. Cost-sharing was the most commonly employed incentive in the direct legislation states and windbreaks were the most common practice in those states. Tax incentives and cost-sharing were the most favored approaches in the 11 states with indirect legislation. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.