The logging industry of the Amazon is a topic that has received little attention in the literature, beyond specific single firm case studies. This has not allowed estimation of cost and production functions that can be used to predict changes in the industry in response to external market factors or government policies. Cost functions and rents are very important to characterize the dynamics of industry behavior, as well as providing important information for future policies. This study relies on a survey of 527 firms to estimate harvest, transportation, and milling cost functions for the logging industry in the Brazilian Amazon, finding variables such as labor cost, distance from the forest to the sawmill, equipment and frontier type to significantly affect the total and marginal cost of each activity. Rents are also estimated for different sampled milling centers, and a cost minimizing mathematical programming model is presented that explains the advance of the logging frontier in Brazil. / Master of Science

<p>The IT and productivity paradox has been the subject of considerable research in recent decades. Many previous studies, based mainly on macroeconomic statistics or on aggregated company data, have reached disparate conclusions. Consequently, the question whether IT investments contribute to productivity growth is still heavily debated. More recent research, however, has indicated that IT contributes positively to economic development but that this contribution is not fully revealed when only productivity is measured.</p><p>To explore the issue of IT and productivity further, the ITOP (Impact of IT On Productivity) research program was launched in 2003. An alternative research approach is developed with the emphasis on the microeconomic level and information flows in processes in specific industry segments. In the empirical study, the development of information flows is tracked over several decades. Effects of digitized information flows are hereby identified and quantified in order to determine their importance in terms of productivity.</p><p>The purpose of this study is to explore effects of information technology by studying digitized information flows in key processes in the logging industry. The research shows that several information flows in the logging process have been digitized leading to new ways to capture, use, spread, process, refine and access information throughout the logging process. A large variety of effects have also been identified from this development.</p><p>The results show that only a minor part of the effects identified have a direct impact on productivity and thus that a large number of significant effects do not. Effects with a major direct impact on productivity include increased efficiency in timber measurement registration, lower costs of timber accounting and increased utilization of harvesters and forest resources. Other significant effects with no direct impact on productivity are related to a more open timber market, increased timber customization, control, decision-making and access to information, as well as skill levels and innovation. The results thus demonstrate that it is questionable whether conventional productivity measures are sufficient for measuring the impact of IT.</p> / ISRN/Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2005:40

The IT and productivity paradox has been the subject of considerable research in recent decades. Many previous studies, based mainly on macroeconomic statistics or on aggregated company data, have reached disparate conclusions. Consequently, the question whether IT investments contribute to productivity growth is still heavily debated. More recent research, however, has indicated that IT contributes positively to economic development but that this contribution is not fully revealed when only productivity is measured. To explore the issue of IT and productivity further, the ITOP (Impact of IT On Productivity) research program was launched in 2003. An alternative research approach is developed with the emphasis on the microeconomic level and information flows in processes in specific industry segments. In the empirical study, the development of information flows is tracked over several decades. Effects of digitized information flows are hereby identified and quantified in order to determine their importance in terms of productivity. The purpose of this study is to explore effects of information technology by studying digitized information flows in key processes in the logging industry. The research shows that several information flows in the logging process have been digitized leading to new ways to capture, use, spread, process, refine and access information throughout the logging process. A large variety of effects have also been identified from this development. The results show that only a minor part of the effects identified have a direct impact on productivity and thus that a large number of significant effects do not. Effects with a major direct impact on productivity include increased efficiency in timber measurement registration, lower costs of timber accounting and increased utilization of harvesters and forest resources. Other significant effects with no direct impact on productivity are related to a more open timber market, increased timber customization, control, decision-making and access to information, as well as skill levels and innovation. The results thus demonstrate that it is questionable whether conventional productivity measures are sufficient for measuring the impact of IT. / <p>ISRN/Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2005:40</p>