From backwoods to boardrooms: The rise of institutional investment in timberland, ISBN 9780870711428, Daowei Zhang. Oregon State University Press, 2021. 280 p

Timberland ownership in the world, especially in the United States, has experienced significant changes in the past few decades. In this commentary, I reviewed a recently published book by Daowei Zhang under this theme. The book examined the driving forces of institutional timberland investment by compiling a number of landmark events through corporate reports and interviews with major parties involved. This helps us better understand the motivation, synergy, corporate strategy, competition, financing structure, organizational arrangement, broad impact of the ownership shift. The book also compared returns of timberland investment management organizations and real estate investment trusts, and provided an outlook of future research in timberland investment. As a summary, I positioned the book in the current literature of timberland investment and elaborated some lines of subsequent research.

Duke Scholars

Author Bin Mei Environmental Sciences and Policy