Enjoying Catch and Fishing Effort: The Effort Effect in Recreational Fisheries

Recreational fishermen derive utility from catch and fishing effort. Building our analysis on the Gordon-Clark model for renewable resources, we show that a lower importance of catch may result in higher catches. While this effect also holds under first-best management, it may destabilize open-access recreational fisheries to the point of stock collapse. Technical progress in recreational fisheries may mask such dynamics as it enables unaltered angler behavior and constant catches during stock declines.     

Costs and Benefits of Bycatch Reduction Devices in European Brown Shrimp Trawl Fisheries

Discarding of juvenile fish is a wellrecognised problem in shrimp fisheries. In manycases, these fish are commercial species that,if not caught, could increase the productivityof other fisheries. In January 2003, Europeanlegislation was implemented by Member Statesrequiring all vessels fishing for brown shrimpto use selective trawls in order to minimisethe bycatch of other commercial species. Incomplying with the regulations, however, thecatch rate of the target species (the shrimp)is likely to be reduced. In this paper, we usea bioeconomic model to assess the impact ofbycatch reduction devices on fishing effort,catch and profitability in the European Crangon fisheries. The potential benefits (interms of higher future yields and consequentlyhigher profits) to the white-fish fisheries arealso estimated. From the model results, theregulation is expected to result in a netreduction in the profitability of the shrimpfishers. However, the benefits to thewhite-fish fishers is expected to more thanoffset this cost, resulting in an overall netbenefit.     

Embodied and Disembodied Technical Change in Fisheries: An Analysis of the Sète Trawl Fishery, 1985–1999

Overfishing and excess capacity in mostfisheries around the world have generated considerableand increasing concern about their biological and economic performance ramifications. Theseproblems, in part, stem from substantialinvestment in technical improvements to boats andequipment in fishing fleets, which exacerbatesexcess fishing capacity and low returns tofishing effort and investment, given regulatoryand biological constraints. However, little attempt hasbeen made to quantify the extent or effects oftechnical change in fisheries. In this paper, we usedetailed data on innovation patterns for 19vessels in the Sète trawl fleet of southernFrance to evaluate the contributions oftechnical change to catch rates. We find thatembodied technical change enhanced productivity by approximately one percent per year between 1985 and 1999, but that external (disembodied) events counteractedthis trend, causing a net output decline ofabout three percent per year.     

"三江并流"旅游资源可持续利用中的多途径整合研究

“三江并流”世界自然遗产地旅游资源数量丰，种类多，价值突出，可在世界自然遗产保护、自然保护区建设、生物圈保护区建设、国家地质公园建设、大香格里拉生态旅游区建设等很多高级别项目中进行利用和保护，但这种复杂的利用与保护网络也会带来多头管理、利益分割、重利用而轻保护等问题。本文在对“三江并流”旅游资源价值及其利用与保护问题进行分析的基础上，提出从空间优化、管理经营整合、规划整合、生态特区建设等方面入手，以世界自然遗产保护为主线，科学统筹地质公园、生物圈保护区、自然保护区、风景名胜区、大香格里拉建设等资源利用与保护工作的整合策略。     

ITQ’s in Chile: Measuring the Economic Benefits of Reform

In 2001 an individual (operationally transferable) quota system was introduced for all the most important industrial fisheries in Chile. This system was put in place after years of declining stocks and over investment. In this paper we describe this reform and estimate related allocative efficiency benefits for the most important industrial fishery in the country, the southern pelagic fishery. Benefits were estimated using a bioeconomic model estimated using data for the 1985–2004 period. The estimated model was then used to generate simulated scenarios of the evolution of this fishery in a 20 year horizon with and without the ITQ system in place. The benefits of the reform can then be estimated by comparing the fishery’s costs in the scenarios with and without ITQs. This approach allows benefits to be estimated using more realistic counterfactual scenarios than just comparing the fishery before and after the reform. Estimated discounted net benefits reach US $166 million in the period 2001–2020. Fleet size fell from 149 active boats in 2000 to 57 in 2004 as a direct consequence of the reform. Among the interesting features of the Chilean experience is the way the political economy of the reform was facilitated by the prior introduction of de facto individual quotas within the framework of fishery experimental activities. When the authorities closed the southern pelagic fishery because of biological problems between 1997 and 2000, they organized ‘experimental’ fishing expeditions in which participant boats were given the right to fish a certain amount of resources per expedition. This pseudo quota system allowed fishermen to experience directly the benefits of individual quotas and that was instrumental to the political agreement leading to the reform. It is important to note that the Chilean southern industrial pelagic fishery has average catches of over 1.4 million tons a year, making it one of the largest fisheries in the world to be regulated by individual quotas.     

Comparing approaches to valuing sectoral net investments

In the literature of comprehensive national accounts, national net investments are used to indicate dynamic welfare improvement in an economy. A well-known approach associates national net investments with the shadow value of change in stock of capital assets in an economy. Following this capital stock approach, sectoral net investments can be defined as the shadow value of change in stock of capital assets owned by a sector in an economy. An alternative approach is based on future commodity flows to a sector. This commodity flow approach associates sectoral net investments with the present value of changes in future commodity flows to a sector. In the present paper, I compare these two approaches and prove that they coincide with each other only if the future commodity flows to the sector can be attributed to current stock of capital assets in the sector alone. In empirical studies, commodity flow approach can be a better alternative if the purpose is to estimate the contributions to national net investments of a recipient of future cash flows.     

National accounts and environmental resources

In the paper, optimal growth theory is used to derive the appropriate definition of the net national product concept, when there are environmental resources and environmental damage to take into account. The basic conclusions are that conventional defined NP should be corrected by deducting environmental damage and adding the value of the net change of all resources.     

A dynamic semester-long social dilemma game for economic and interdisciplinary courses

The authors present a semester-long game to teach the role of economics in natural resources management. The game is framed within a fisheries context: multiple student fisheries harvest fish to maximize yield/profit, which is measured using a piecewise linear function. There are prizes for both the student and the group with the highest semester-long catch, which brings forth the social dilemma associated with dynamic stock externalities in fisheries. The game can be played in large classes, is robust to student attrition, and requires 5–10?minutes per class period. Given its features, it can be used to teach behavioral economic principles in resource management, incentives versus command-and-control regulations, role of cheap talk, social preferences, punishment, and community management as well as solutions such as aquaculture.     

Ecological and economic sustainability in fishery management: A multi-agent model for understanding competition and cooperation

Recent studies have shown that many marine ecosystems are experiencing an accelerating loss of population and biodiversity. It is apparent that there is a growing disparity between the available supply of fish and the desire of the growing world population to catch them. Although studies have begun to question the ecological sustainability of managed fishery systems, they often omit the corresponding effects on the economic sustainability of fishery industries. This is particularly important in rural coastal areas where the fishing industry is often a dominant employer. In this article, we analyze the interactions between economic and ecological dynamic systems using a multi-agent dynamic model of fishery management. Multiple agents (fishers) harvest multiple fish species and adapt the amount and allocation of their effort to their value functions, which are given as net profits of the fish harvest sold for a market price. This is largely unique in fishery models, since many econometric studies view fishers as represented by homogenous ‘average’ agents. We introduce and compare two different decision rules governing the behavior of fishers engaged in a competitive market. We demonstrate a situation where both behaviors lead to a decline of all fish stocks, as well as profits for most fishers. As an alternative, we introduce a cooperative approach in which fisheries jointly set sustainable limits for total harvest and effort that are then distributed to the fishers according to distribution rules. The simulation reveals that fish stocks and profits can stabilize at significantly higher levels in the cooperative case, leading to a continuous accumulation of capital for all fishers. This model demonstrates key aspects of overfishing conflicts that can be overcome through planned fishing quotas and cooperative market mechanisms. It also demonstrates a novel approach for simulating the dynamic behavior of heterogeneous fishers.     

A Review of Selected Bioeconomic Models with Environmental Influences in Fisheries

Bioeconomic models are integrated economic-ecological models, with all the advantages and disadvantages of such models. Most bioeconomic modelling seeks appropriate levels of stock and catch to assist resource managers, normally with environmental conditions assumed constant. However, bioeconomic models can be used to analyse the welfare effects of changes in environmental quality as well. This latter application is the subject of this review. The review concentrates on the commercial harvesting of fish stocks, where population dynamics are influenced by environmental quality. In the first part of the paper, the basic static and dynamic bioeconomic models are described and then extensions are considered that take account of the influence of environmental quality on habitat and, by inference, on sustainable catch levels and measures of economic surplus. The second part of the paper describes a series of case studies from the empirical bioeconomic literature that apply some of the theoretical innovations described earlier. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Tragedy of the Commons: Institutions and Fisheries Management at the Local and EU Levels

Garrett Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons argument states that resources held in common will inevitably suffer overexploitation and degradation. However, recent contradicting evidence has led theorists to question the soundness of this claim. This paper assesses the accuracy and predictive success of the six essential assumptions of Hardin's approach. The aim of the paper is to compare the functioning of the tragedy of the commons approach at the local and the international levels, in order to demonstrate that the context we choose affects the applicability of the hypothesis in explaining policy outcomes. The paper compares the validity of the tragedy of the commons hypothesis in three marine cases: California fisheries, modern Oregon fisheries and European Union Common Fisheries Policy. We find that at the local level the tragedy of the commons can be mitigated when a co-management of institutions is achieved, while the EU case shows that the tragedy of the commons is a realistic prediction when dealing with international institutions.     

The Use and Abuse of Environmental Knowledge: A Bloomington School Interpretation of the Canadian Fisheries Act of 1868

This paper will focus on the ambitious plan for regulation embodied in the Dominion Fisheries Act of 1868, a law passed by the Canadian federal parliament in its very first year of existence. The 1868 law was intended to bring the nation's fisheries firmly under the control of officials employed by the new federal government. The paper argues that 1868 law, which was designed to address what would today be called Tragedy of the Commons problems, was a product of the hubris identified by Hayek as "the fatal conceit." The centralized and bureaucratic approach to governing fisheries represented by the 1868 Fisheries Act did not work well because the knowledge that would have been required for successful management of fisheries was highly dispersed. Drawing on Hayek and the Bloomington School, this paper argues that the experience of Canada's fisheries sector in the generation after 1868 illustrates the problems with centralized management Common-Pool Resources. In the 1890s, the centralized approach represented by the Fisheries Act of 1868 was replaced by a more flexible and decentralized system Hayek's theory of knowledge would suggest the reversal of centralization over environmental policy in the 1890s was a positive development that helped Canadians to reconcile the goals of economic development and the protection of the environment. The Hayekian paradigm suggests that control over environmental policy should be devolved downwards to the levels of government closest to resource users.     

Methods for Environmental and Economic Accounting for the Exploitation of Wild Fish Stocks and their Applications to the Case of Icelandic Fisheries

The paper discusses methods for estimating the value of commercially exploited fish stocks and the cost of exploiting them. Methods which are recommended in the System of National Accounting (SNA) satellite system and the System for Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) and relevant for this task are discussed. The paper questions the relevance of some of these methods. It argues for the integration of economic accounting for wild fish stocks with estimation of efficient management of them. Using biological and economic data makes it possible to produce consistent estimates of the value of fish stocks and the cost of exploiting them. These estimates are useful for national accounting and for guiding management of fisheries. This method allows estimation of the cost of inefficiency of fisheries management besides estimation of the cost of depletion. The different methods are illustrated using data on commercial fisheries in Iceland and the fish stocks that they exploit. It is shown that even if all methods are based on market valuation and use only objective data they lead to very different outcomes.     

PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS AND CRISES IN WORLD FISHERIES: TURNING THE TIDE?

This paper addresses the crises in the world's fisheries involving dwindling stocks, overcapitalization, and jurisdiction disputes from a property rights perspective. In particular, it examines the causes of the problems fishers face and explores the potential of privatizing the right to catch fish as a means to address the crises. The analysis assesses experiences of private harvesting rights with reference to monitoring and enforcement, allocating rights, economic benefits, adjustments in the fishery, and resource rents. It also examines issues such as fluctuating fish stocks, straddling stocks and high seas fisheries, and the endemic poverty of many artisanal fisheries in the context of current fisheries practice.     

ITQ Systems in Multifleet Fisheries

Optimum management of a particular fishery is analyzed based on an ITQ system. For this purpose, a multifleet deterministic bioeconomic model is developed and applied. Using data on the fishery studied here, estimates are made of the stock dynamics of fish and the technology used by the fleets operating in said fishery. Optimum levels of stock, effort and catch are determined. Finally, we present economic policy recommendations for this fishery and considerations for applying regulatory measures.     

Loss of economic rents in the global fishery

Most of the world’s ocean fisheries are severely lacking in private property rights in the underlying natural resources or their close complements (e.g. harvesting volume). Therefore, according to standard property rights theory, these fisheries should be highly wasteful of potential economic rents from these resources. The question is whether this economic loss can be empirically verified and, if so, how large it is. This paper explains the concept and develops the analytical theory of economic and natural rents. Building on this and utilizing global fisheries data, the paper proceeds to estimate a global fisheries model, obtain numerical estimates of the rent loss in the world’s ocean capture fisheries and provide reasonable confidence bounds for this loss. It is found that the global fisheries rent loss constitutes almost certainly a large fraction of the landed value of the global landings. The mean estimate of this loss is well over 50% of the value of landings.     

A Bioeconomic Analysis of the Northern Baltic Salmon Fishery: Coexistence versus Exclusion of Competing Sequential Fisheries

We develop a bioeconomic model of the northern Balticsalmon fishery that takes into account thesimultaneous harvest of wild and reared salmon. Weassess the optimal harvest allocation between thecommercial offshore, inshore, and estuary fisheries,and the recreational river fishery that sequentiallyharvest the salmon stock. We restrict the solution tospawning stocks sufficient to preserve the wildsalmon. Empirical results suggest closure of theoffshore and inshore fisheries. Optimal managementenhances the wild stock, and results in substantialeconomic gains to the fishery. Current fisheryregulation improves the performance of the fisheryover open access, but fails to utilize the fullproductive potential of the resource.     

Scarcity and appropriative competition

This paper formalizes the commonsensical hypothesis that resource scarcity causes a large allocation of time and effort to appropriative competition. Our main innovation is to model explicitly the positive intertemporal effect of consumption on the probability of survival. The critical assumption is that this effect becomes stronger as resources become scarcer. We also show that anticipated future resource abundance increases the incremental value of survival and, consequently, amplifies the current allocation of time and effort to appropriative competition. Interestingly, if resources are currently scarce, then larger anticipated future abundance can cause a big enough increase in the time and effort allocated to appropriative competition to result in a decrease in the sum of current and expected future utility, a “paradox of anticipated abundance”.     

PROJECT EVALUATION AND RESOURCE SUSTAINABILITY

This paper outlines a procedure for embodying the principle of resource sustainability in evaluating projects that use significant amounts of natural resources. In this analysis, sustainability requires maintaining the productivity of the resource used over time, either by renewing the resource or by investing its depletion in other capital assets. The basis of a project's evaluation is its net present social value (NPSV), including resource depletion as a social cost. The social cost of depletion is the amount that must be saved and reinvested annually to accumulate a fund that will yield a perpetual annual income equal to the net output lost by resource depletion. By treating resource depletion as a social cost in calculating NPSV, projects causing a high rate of resource depletion receive a relatively low valuation compared with projects causing less resource depletion. Resource depletion includes environmental damage caused by constructing and operating a project, as well as the direct consumption of natural resources.
Several problems arise in reinvesting depletion to preserve the value of a resource base. One major problem relates to the substitutability of man-made capital for natural resources. The conclusion of the analysis here is that society must invest a substantial amount of resource depletion in: (i) replenishing renewable resources, (ii) increasing product output per unit of resource used, or (Hi) increasing the end-use efficiency of resource-intensive products.     

Estimation of Biological and Economic Parameters of a Bioeconomic Fisheries Model Using Dynamical Data Assimilation

A new approach of model parameter estimation is used with simulated measurements to recover both biological and economic input parameters of a natural resource model. The data assimilation technique is the variational adjoint method (VAM) for parameter estimation. It efficiently combines time series of artificial data with a simple bioeconomic fisheries model to optimally estimate the model parameters. Using identical twin experiments, it is shown that the parameters of the model can be retrieved. The procedure provides an efficient way of calculating poorly known model parameters by fitting model results to simulated data. In separate experiments with exact and noisy data, we have demonstrated that the VAM can be an efficient method of analyzing bioeconomic data.