Millions of dollars are collected through Mississippi’s timber severance tax every year which then funds the Forest Resource Development Program (FRDP). This study analyzed their contributions to Mississippi’s economy and found that the total possible contribution was estimated to be $6.0 million in industrial output and 222 full-time and part-time jobs in 2019. However, only about 70 percent of the FRDP funds were expended in that year, and the actual contribution was short by $1.80 million in output and 80 full-time and part-time jobs. This study also examined the impact of the severance tax and FRDP on forest investment, using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS). Results suggest that participation in the program is the most important factor to increase the returns from forest investment and the incentives offered by the program are more important for some landowners than others.