Abstract

The consumption of forest product commodities in Iran is primarily based on import. So, the knowledge of wood and wood product import is of prime importance to the national economy and provides a useful guide to producers and importers of such commodities and the policy makers. In this paper, the import for wood based panels including particleboard, plywood and veneer in Iran during the period of 1984 to 2008 is empirically analyzed using a three-stage squares simulation model (3SLS). Prior to estimation, Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test was applied to investigate the stationary character of the data Table 1. The results indicate that the behavior of demand for imports of these products is not identical in response to changes in the effective factors. The price elasticity for particleboard and plywood imports were calculated as -0.56 and -1.23 respectively. Whereas the import of veneer was price –inelastic. The income elasticity for imports of particleboard, plywood and veneer were calculated as 2.03, 3.39 and 3.91 respectively. The export petroleum income showed positive impact on demand for imports of veneer, but cannot influence imports demand of particleboard and plywood. Demand for import of all the mentioned products is affected by exchange rate variations. The domestic production quantities of plywood and veneer have adverse impact on demand for import of these products. However, for particleboard, the out dated production structure of domestic manufacturing facilities causes the inefficiency of locally produced particleboard to affect the demand for import. For the studied commodities, import variable with the first lagged have adverse impact on the current demand for their imports. The impact of explanatory variables on import demand for particleboard, plywood and veneer are consistent with economic theories.

Key words: Elasticities, import demand, particleboard, plywood, simultaneous equations, veneer.