Coos County has been promised a lot of jobs will be created by various economic development projects that did not come to pass. Understandably, when a new project promises jobs and revenue with a murky background analysis, prudence dictates taking a deeper look. Dr Phil Ruder of Pacific University teaches economics and last year submitted testimony before the Board of Forestry. This excerpt indicates the importance of empirical data versus financial modeling. [Emphasis added]
Employment Effects of Increased Timber Harvests
The economic benefits of increased timber harvests in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests
have been greatly exaggerated by ODF and county analysts. The ODF regularly asserts that every additional million board feet of timber harvested annually in the state forests results in 5 new jobs in lumber, plywood, and other wood products and 7 additional jobs in other sectors (ODF 2009). There is simply no sound theoretical or empirical evidence to support this assertion. For just one of many examples, consider the fact that as timber harvests in Tillamook and Clatsop Counties more than doubled from 272 million board feet in 1990 to 554 million board feet in 2006 at the peak of the housing boom, jobs in lumber, plywood, and other wood products in the counties grew from 1,240 in 1990 to 1,268 in 2006 (Oregon Employment
Department 2009). The models ODF uses to predict the employment effects of increased harvests would have predicted an increase of 1,400 jobs where in fact an increase of just 28 jobs occurred.
Once again, the importance of conducting due diligence cannot be ignored.
