Browsing by discipline "Forest Economics (Social Economics of Forestry)"

This master’s thesis examines the effect of international forest investing on the return and risk of the overall risky portfolio. In addition this study looks at the optimal share of forest in the portfolio and correlation between different assets. Interest towards investing in forestry has increased. As a result, knowledge of forest’s characteristics as an investment and different forest investment instruments has increased. Research on forest investing has however been carried out mainly on a national level. This thesis aims to expand the field of research by taking into consideration the global nature of investing. Today, many investors understand the importance of the diversification of the portfolio and hence divide the capital into different asset classes, sectors and markets. This study includes a theoretical framework in which forest assets that differ in terms of location, species, forest management and end product can be compared and included into the portfolio. Return on forestry is calculated according to the Faustmann formula. The historical average return is used as the expected future return. Optimisation of the overall risky portfolio is based on the modern portfolio theory. The framework was tested empirically with three hypothetical case study forest assets, located in Finland, the United States and Uruguay. These forest assets were included to a portfolio, which consisted of three alternative financial assets. Results showed that investing in forest improves the performance of the overall risky portfolio. The optimal share of forest in the portfolio is around 3-15% of the capital. The extent of forest investing’s benefits and the exact share of forest in the portfolio depend on the available risk-free rate. Most of the forest assets seemed to have a low correlation with other assets. It was found that exchange rates affected risk-reward ratios and hence also the results of the optimisation process.