Articles by Ilmo Rinkinen

The aim of this paper was to shape and analyse certain alternatives in the development processes in the organization chains of Finnish forestry. The material was collected by analysing market structures and characteristics of competition with regard to raw wood and forest industry products.

The paper presents two alternative ways to rationalize the organization chains between the forest owner’s organizations and forest industry. In the price mechanism of raw wood originating from Finnish private forests there there has been increasing influence of the central organizations of the private forest owners and forest industry. In their relationship, the model of bilateral monopolistic competition can be chosen as a conceptual framework.

Under bilateral monopoly price is fixed as a result of negotiations between competitive parties, and the position and tactics within the negotiations are of great importance for the negotiating parties. Because of the competition, Finnish forest industry cannot compensate the increase in the production costs by raising independently the export prices of its products. This and the fact that the annual earnings of forest workers are fixed by law to the earnings of the workers in wood-processing industry, will cause pressure on stumpage prices.

In the paper two schemes are outlined. In the Scheme 1 a development alternative is described in which the organization chain of private forest owners is supposed to develop to the industry growing direction. In the Scheme 2 the organization chain of private forest owners is supposed to develop to the organizational orientated direction.

It is concluded that as long as the forest owners’ organizational orientated central organization is too weak to form a monopoly as counterweight to the monopsol of forest industry (except the industries of forest owners), it will consider the industry growing direction superior to the organizational orientated alternative.

The PDF includes a summary in English.

• Rinkinen, E-mail: ir@mm.unknown

The purpose of this investigation was to construct a procedure for measuring the profitability of the use of waste wood. The average price a sawmill gets from the waste wood depends, on the amount of use compared with the waste wood output, and on the composition of waste wood. Production of different kinds of waste wood presupposes investments, therefore, the size of a sawmill, in addition to its location, affects the composition. The data was collected by mailing a questionnaire through the central organizations of the sawmill industry in 1959.

The amount of waste wood per standard of sawn wood increases with the size of the sawmill. Because small sawmills cannot generally use or sell their waste wood, they strive at using the raw material effectively. In addition, they produce much rough-edged sawn wood, and sorting is not as strict as at large sawmills. They also leave their sawn wood untrimmed.

Finland’s pulp industry has expanded significantly since 1958. This has increased the need of raw wood, and the demand of sawmill waste. An additional data collected showed that in 1958 there was about 150 and in 1963 about 200 sawmills delivering waste wood to the forest industry. The amount of waste wood used as raw material compared with the total waste wood utilization had increased about 10% during the period. The production of cellulose chips became profitable when the annual output of sawn wood of a sawmill exceeded 1,000-2,000 stds. The size structure of the sawmills affects the regional usage of the waste wood.

The PDF includes a summary in English.

• Rinkinen, E-mail: ir@mm.unknown