374 



TIMBER RESOURCES FOR AJVIERICA'S FUTURE 



Table 208.^ — Estimated economic growth oj the United States, 1952-2000 



Item 



Unit of measure 



Estimate 

 for 1952 



Economic estimates basic to — 



Medium and 

 lower timber 



demand 



projections 



to 1975 



Medium and 

 lower timber 



demand 



projections 



to 2000 



Upper tim- 

 ber demand 

 projection 

 to 2000 



Population 



Total labor force 



Armed forces 



Civilian labor force 



Unemployed 



Employed civilians 



Workweek 



Man-hour productivity 



Gross national product 



Disposable personal income 



Input of physical-structure materials. 



Million people. 



do 



do 



do 



do 



do 



Hours 



Dollars' 



Billion dollars ". 



do 



Billion units 



157.0 

 66. 4 



3.4 

 63.0 



1.7 



61. 3 



40. 2 



2. 56 



354. 1 



238 



5. 9 



215 



85. 

 3.5 



81.5 

 3. 5 



78.0 

 35 



4. 50 

 630 

 441 

 8.3 



275 



110 



4 



106 



4 



102 



30 



7. 50 



1, 200 



840 



12. 2 



360 

 133 

 4.0 



129 



5 



124 



30 



7. 50 



1,450 



1,015 



14.7 



' 1953 dollars. 



with long periods of time and with products that 

 more generally classify as producer goods. Past 

 influence of price change cannot actually be dis- 

 entangled from the influence of nonprice factors 

 such as technological change, effectiveness of ad- 

 vertising and sales promotion, standardization of 

 product quality, and services rendered by pro- 

 ducers to their customers. Analyses of the past 

 long-term relationship between price change and 

 quantity of a product consiimed are therefore 

 subject to considerable uncertainty, and any pro- 

 jection of past relationships into the future carries 

 with it an assumption that marketing policy and 

 organization on the supply side (in conjunction 

 with price change) will continue to operate about 

 as they have in the past. This implicit assump- 

 tion conflicts with the concept that demand is 

 dependent solely upon the number of consumers, 

 consumers' purchasing power, consumers' pref- 

 erence, and relative price. 



For the lower projections, judgment estimates 

 were made of quantity of various products that 

 might be demanded, provided that price of timber 

 products rises substantially faster than price of 

 nonwood materials. Further details concerning 

 the lower projections appear later in the treatment 

 of lumber, pulpwood, veneer logs and bolts, and 

 the minor industrial-wood products. 



FUTURE DEMAND FOR LUMBER 



Lumber, with only a few exceptions over the 

 past 30 years, has represented from 60 to 70 per- 

 cent of all the industrial wood consumed annually 

 in the United States. While the consumption of 

 pulpwood and of veneer logs and bolts has been 

 increasing very rapidly, those increases have been 

 just about equivalent to the decreases in consump- 

 tion of the minor industrial-wood products such as 



hewn ties, cooperage, mine timbers, and some 

 others. Past experience thus points to the prob- 

 ability that lumber will continue to occupy the 

 major sector of industrial-wood input — at least 

 for the remainder of this century. 



Projections of future demand for lumber involve 

 two different procedures. The medium and upper 

 projections are based on analyses of lumber con- 

 sumption by end uses. The various end-use esti- 

 mates thus determined are then added together 

 to obtain each of the two projections. Such a 

 procedure is possible because both projections rest 

 on the assumption that there wiU be no change in 

 the price relationships of timber products and 

 competing materials. 



The lower projection of future demand for 

 lumber, on the other hand, is made differently. 

 Because this projection is based on the assumption 

 of substantial change in price relationships, the 

 estimates of total demand are developed first, 

 based on analysis of trends in lumber price and 

 consumption. Allocation to end uses of lumber 

 is then done on a judgment basis — using esti- 

 mated 1952 consumption and the medium pro- 

 jections of end-use demand for guidance. Conse- 

 quently these lower estimates are no more than 

 rough approximations of end uses. Uniform per- 

 centage reduction of each medium projection of 

 end-use demand appeared to be not entirely 

 reasonable because demand in certain end uses is 

 probably affected less by price than demand in 

 other end uses. 



In the following detailed analysis of futm-e 

 lumber demand, all of the end-use estimates are 

 developed first, under the assumption pertaining 

 to the medium and upper projections. To facili- 

 tate comparison, the allocations made under the 

 lower projection are presented along with the 

 medium and upper estimates. 



