Reflections on Samuelson's Economics of Forestry in an Evolving Society

摘要

Paul A. Samuelson called me (Peter) into his office in the fall of 1974 because he thought I knew something about the Faustmann problem, the question of present value maximizing rotation length in a stationary forest setting. While I did know the technical answer to the optimization problem, I was soon to learn that its solution had originally been found by Gustav Faustmann in 1849. More amazingly, its solution had evaded a long list of brilliant analysts.