A micro economic analysis of a profit-sharing reforestation contract (I) A basic model and its results

This paper examines the characteristics of a profit-sharing reforestation contract from the viewpoint of the efficient use of forest resources. A profit-sharing reforestation contract is defined here as a contract where a planter rents the land for some period for forest management and shares the proceeds from the sale of stumpage with the land-owner in some ratio. The planter is considered to be a public sector in the paper. Under the four assumptions; namely 1) the world is in a deterministic steady state, 2) the stumpage proceeds function is concave and increasing during the rotation periods, 3) the discount rate of the land-owner coincides with that of the planter, and 4) the externality of forests does not exist; it is shown that the rotation periods and the share rates are unique. It also is shown that the rotation period is socially optimal and coincides with one derived from thefaustmannformula.