From Finnish Assortment Pricing to Market Economy Using Prices for Sawn Wood and Chips in Reference Bucking

Dominant Finnish assortment pricing gives prices for sawlog and pulp wood volumes. Buyers buck stems to sawlogs using secret price matrices. Agreed dimensions allow wide range of sawlog volumes. Forest owners cannot objectively compare biddings: timber trade is a lottery game. Bucking is analyzed in terms of sawlog, pulp wood, log cylinder, sawn wood, value-weighted sawn wood, and chips. Sawn wood and its value are computed from top diameter of the sawlog. Profit maximization requires buyers to buck logs producing smaller than maximal value, causing dead weight loss. Nominal assortment prices have unpredictable relation to effective stumpage price. Assortment pricing does not meet requirements of market economy. If sawmills linked to pulp mills buck smaller sawlog percentages than independent sawmills, as generally believed, they use higher price for chips in their own harvests than they pay for independent sawmills, indicating imperfect competition for chips. Sawn wood potential pricing is suggested which gives prices for sawn wood and chips coming both from sawlogs and pulp wood in reference bucking which maximizes sawn wood for given minimum and maximum log length and minimum top diameter. Simple algorithm generates feasible bucking schedules from which optimum can be selected using any objective. Pricing produces unit price for all commercial wood utilizing ratio of theoretical sawn wood and commercial volume in stand. Unit price can be compared to stem pricing and could be compared to assortment pricing if assortment pricing would produce predictable sawlog percentages. Sawn wood potential pricing is concrete, transparent, easy to compute, considers stem size and tapering, reduces trading cost and is less risky to buyers than stem pricing. It meets requirements of market economy. Readers can repeat computations using open-source software Jlp22.