This research investigates sources leading to productivity changes for the US forest products industry during the time period from 1997 to 2009 using the contemporaneous and global Malmquist productivity index (MPI) approaches. Under the assumption of variable returns to scale, the global MPI breaks down into new measures of decomposition, such as efficiency change, best practice change, and scale efficiency change. Overall, the productivity change for this industry shows progression in both approaches. The technical and scale efficiency changes are main sources of productivity growth. However, compared with the contemporaneous MPI, the global MPI can reflect the real-world situation in terms of productivity change. Within the US forest products industry, the annual growth rates in housing starts and in real export value significantly affect the productivity growth in the wood product sector. In contrast, the real export value's growth rate is the only notable effect on the pulp and paper sector's productivity growth.