The export of solid wood products from southern customs districts, 1967-80

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the export of solid wood products from the South. This reawakening has come about mainly because of growing U.S. trade deficits and the need to promote exports in order to reduce these deficits.

A cross sectional-time series data base of solid wood products exported from the South for the years 1967 to 1980 was developed. This data set contains information on quantity and value and is broken down by year, commodity, customs district and country of destination. This information is presented in tabular form along with a description of trends in the export of each product.

The final phase of the study involved the application of constant-market-share analysis to the data set in order to determine which commodities and markets were growing and which were stagnant. This analysis showed that most of the increase in southern exports could be attributed to increased demand for U.S. forest products exports as a whole and the market distribution of southern exports. Commodity composition and the competitiveness factor had negative effects on southern exports. It was also shown that the South's position relative to the rest of the United States improved when softwood saw log exports were excluded.