Intervention analysis of COVID-19 pandemic impact on timber price in selected markets
Petra Hlaváčková, Jan Banaś, Katarzyna Utnik-Banaś
Abstract
Using intervention analysis and time series of roundwood prices from ten European and North American countries, we analyzed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the movement of timber prices. The study material consists of forty-six quarterly time series prices of logs and pulp, both softwood and hardwood, covering the period 2005–2022. During the Covid-19 pandemic period (2020:Q1-2020:Q4), softwood log prices mostly underwent declines, with the changes being the largest in Slovakia (−35%), the Czech Republic (−24%) and Austria (−24%), slightly smaller in the United States (−19%), Poland (−17%), Slovenia (−12%) and Germany (−11%) while no significant price changes were recorded in Finland and Sweden. In Canada and the United States, sharp price declines occurred earlier (2020:Q1 and 2020:Q2, respectively), while in Europe, significant price declines occurred later and lasted longer. In the post-pandemic COVID-19 period, prices increased, but in most cases, the shift was not statistically significant compared to the pre-pandemic period. Softwood pulp prices were subject to much less change, with a significant increase only in Slovakia and Poland. In contrast, no significant changes were observed in the price of both log and pulpwood hardwood during the COVID-19 pandemic.