Economic performance of forest-reliant census subdivisions between 1981 and 1991.

This article assesses the economic performance of Canadian forest reliant census subdivisions (referred to as FRCs for the purposes of this paper) over the period 1981 to 1991. FRCs performed reasonably well over the 10 year period. The average annual rate of growth in base income was 1.7% per year. However, the performance of FRCs is quite varied. Growth of non-forest sectors was the major contributor to growth in FRCs indicating a general tendency for these CSDs to diversify and become less forest reliant over time. Generally, the FRCs that performed well over the period were the ones that initially had one or more of the following characteristics: larger FRCs, FRCs that were initially less forest reliant, FRCs with a higher paper and allied component in the forest sector and FRCs with lower initial wage rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]