In Finland The Central Forestry Board Tapio conducts forest drainage operations on swamps owned mainly by private individuals. This drainage is almost totally financed by the Government either as loans or subsidies. The local contractors have left bids about new forest drainage projects, and the best bid has won the contract. The trend of the average price for forest drains has been declining during the last 11 years although digging costs have increased. The aim of this study was (1) to explain the regional price variation of forest drains made by tractor-diggers and (2) to describe competition among tractor-digger contractors and to measure its effect on prices.
Correlation and regression analyses support the hypothesis that competition among tractor-digger contractors has decreased forest drain prices, especially in 1967. In the course of the last two years this competition effect has been lessening. The most significant other variables explaining price variations were the proportion of winter drainage, length of drainage work done for each participant in the project, and density of drains.
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