Title: Engineered wood products as substitutes in the Canadian building construction industry

Authors: Shashi K. Shahi; Mathew Leitch; Mohamed Dia

Addresses: Research Group in Operations and Decision Sciences, Department of Finance and Operations, Faculty of Management, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, P3E-2C6, Canada ' Wood Science and Testing Facility, Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON, P7B-5E1, Canada ' Research Group in Operations and Decision Sciences, Department of Finance and Operations, Faculty of Management, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, P3E-2C6, Canada

Abstract: Engineered and reconstituted wood products play an important role in building construction, and have positive environmental impacts. However, the wood products compete with other construction material (concrete and steel) in terms of prices in the Canadian building construction industry, and the price competition has not been explored in past literature. In order to promote the use of wood and wood-based products, there is a need to understand how prices influence the choice of construction material. We estimated the own and cross-price elasticities of demand of construction material in Canada using standard log-linear regression models with consumption and price data from 1990 to 2017. Our study shows that engineered and reconstituted wood products are substitutes for cement and steel, and hence there is a need to focus on the development of these value-added forest products, to create sustainable local economies that are economically viable, environmentally sound and socially responsible.

Keywords: building construction industry; construction material; engineered wood products; EWP; price elasticity; sustainability; wood-based products.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEM.2021.114394

International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets, 2021 Vol.13 No.2, pp.142 - 158

Received: 15 May 2019
Accepted: 14 Jun 2020
Published online: 20 Apr 2021 *

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