While the subject of West Africa’s forest business has received some research interest, knowledge gaps persist on the current state of timber business in the subregion, the economic linkage of a West African forest sector with other sectors of its national economy and on the potential impact of intra-African trade liberalization on key forest products sectors’ output and global welfare. The three studies in this dissertation were tailored to address these gaps. The first study examined the state of timber business in West Africa through a review of published literature and an analysis of forest statistics. The results revealed that GDP per capita had a significant effect on wood production, and while wood production has increased in the last two decades, the wood processing capacity of countries in the subregion remained low. The second study quantified the economic contribution of Ghana’s forest sector to its national economy and identified the linkages between its forest sector and other sectors of its economy via structural path analysis. The results showed that although the forest sector contributed $7.6 billion to Ghana’s economy, all its forest subsectors are backward-oriented. Capital owners benefited more from the forest than labor income earners, and workers with 7 to 11 years of education earned the highest proportion of labor income. The third study employed computable general equilibrium modeling to estimate the impact of the hypothetical elimination of forest products intra-African trade import tariff on global production and welfare. Using the Global Trade Analysis Project for our analysis, the results revealed that the quantity of intra-African forest product imports increased for all three products while extra-African imports into Africa reduced in quantity and the expansion effect for all three forest products rose by between 1.1% to 2.51%. Also, while the regional welfare of Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Oceania, and the rest of the world increased, the wellbeing of Asia, Europe, and North America declined. These results provide more insights into the economics of Africa’s forest business in Africa that may guide critical stakeholders in Africa’s forest sector in their decisions as relate to future forest investments.
