Optimizing forest management under dependent price and production risks: a Markov decision process approach

Marielle Brunette (1) , Stéphane Couture (2) , Jacques-Alexandre Laye (1)

1 LEF - Laboratoire d'Economie Forestière
2 UBIA - Unité de Biométrie et Intelligence Artificielle (ancêtre de MIAT)

In the forest sector, natural disturbances have impact on production and prices. Traditionally, these risks have been analysed separately. In our model, the production risk translates into a price risk through a quality loss. We consider that the stock of timber follows a Markov Decision Process (MDP) with the harvesting decision as a control variable. We solve the optimal harvesting problem under storm risk with a risk-averse forest owner and when risk induces triple dependent consequences on production, price and timber quality. We study the impact of the risk distribution, the risk aversion level and the percentage of quality loss on the optimal harvesting decision.

Domaines: Economies et finances

Marielle Brunette, Stéphane Couture, Jacques-Alexandre Laye. Optimizing forest management under dependent price and production risks: a Markov decision process approach. 19. Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE). Prague, INT., Jun 2012, Prague, Czech Republic. pp.1. ⟨hal-01072291⟩