Exact Values for Ill-defined Products

Forest economics has moved on since the days when practitioners measured timber revenues and operational costs, and theoreticians debated optimal rotations based only on these values. Partly, we no longer assume fixed and certain revenues and costs: econometric sophistication is applied to modelling and predicting their possible future courses (Linden and Uusivuori, in this issue). Additionally, environmental evaluation has become central discourse in forest economics. To such benefits and costs, too, sophisticated analysis is applied. By these techniques, we aim (if only by placing finely calculated limits of error) to measure values precisely: but do we know what values, precisely,...