Bioeconomic Analysis and Management

This article discusses bioeconomic analysis and different management strategies in fisheries. It reviews recent developments, which show the need to expand the analysis to multispecies fisheries and management. Significant gains can be made if the interdependencies between species and/or jointness in inputs for many fisheries are identified. Both common property resource management and individual transferable quotas (ITQs) can be fruitful strategies in different settings. The article suggests that there is scope for the development of a multiple use management approach of marine resources. Besides the aim of an efficient use of fish stocks, equal attention should be given to other values from aquatic ecosystems, like ecological services, biodiversity and recreation possibilities.     

The cost of natural capital consumption: Accounting for a sustainable world economy

The System for integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) has been criticized in this journal for ignoring the benefits of ecosystem services for human well-being. This paper argues that extended national accounts should not attempt measuring economic welfare. Rather, they could and should assess the environmental sustainability of economic activity as the cost of natural capital consumption. The global application of SEEA concepts and methods demonstrates the feasibility of international green accounting. For the world economy, sustainability costs run to about 3 trillion US$ or 6% of world GDP. Large variations at national and regional levels suggest that conventional economic indicators may significantly overstate economic progress in some parts of the world. Data gaps and lack of data comparability affect these first estimates. National and international statistical services should be more aggressive in greening the national accounts. More prudent and more sustainable economic policies might be the result.     

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.     

Accounting for Environmental Services: Contrasting the SEEA and the ENRAP Approaches

Both the System of Integrated Environment and Economic Accounting (SEEA) and the Environmental and Natural Resources Accounting Project (ENRAP) are efforts to expand conventional national economic accounts in order to better reflect interactions between the market economy and the natural environment. In order to maintain a close relationship to the System of National Accounts (SNA) accounting standards, SEEA adopts conventional definitions of productive sectors. However, SEEA fails to account for many valuable services of the natural environment and encourages the use of techniques that provide misleading and poor estimates of depreciation and damage to the environment. ENRAP addresses these deficiencies by explicitly recognizing that the natural environment is a productive economic sector. ENRAP encourages the use of imputation approaches that draw on techniques common in the environmental economics literature. These approaches are consistent with definitions of depreciation and environmental damage widely accepted in economic theory. The principles that underlie the ENRAP approach provide a basis for contrasting ENRAP and SEEA empirically. Using Philippine data, SEEA-type estimates are compared with those of ENRAP.     

ENRAP与SEEA体系中环境服务核算的比较分析

ENRAP和SEEA都设法扩展传统国民经济核算的范围,以更好地反映经济和自然环境的交互影响.ENRAP明确把自然环境作为一个生产性经济部门,采用大量虚拟技术测算环境服务的价值;SEEA采用SNA的生产部门定义与核算准则,但忽略了对许多有价值的自然环境服务的核算.这两大核算体系在环境服务核算的内容、核算方法和核算的结果等方面存在差异.     

系统动力学-投入产出分析整合方法的区域发展协调性研究

将资源环境价值体现在经济核算中,建立绿色国民经济核算体系,全面考虑资源环境与社会经济发展之间的相互作用和相互影响,已成为世界性的热点议题。本文根据物质平衡原理和系统整体性、相关性理论,针对区域社会经济环境复合系统的特点,提出了系统动力学—投入产出分析整合方法,用于研究区域发展协调性,将环境成本和资源价值纳入区域投入产出分析中,为构建区域绿色经济核算体系准备了方法。     

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.     

Environmental–Economic Accounting: Progress and Digression in the SEEA Revisions

The 1992 Earth Summit and its message of sustainable development drove the launching of a System for integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting, the SEEA. Since then, sustainable development and the SEEA have given way to green growth and green economy indicators in the latest 2012 Summit. A lengthy revision process has now produced a curtailed “SEEA central framework.” The new framework focuses on expenditures for environmental protection and resource management, and stocks and flows of “economic” resources; both are covered by the conventional national accounts. Environmental degradation, notably from pollution, is left to “experimental” ecosystem accounts. Further revision of the SEEA should reverse this retrenchment from integrative environmental–economic accounting. A comprehensive satellite system, rather than a limited statistical standard, might put the SEEA back on the policy agenda.     

逆向会计职业判断：成因探析及应对策略选择

新企业会计准则的主要变化之一是会计自由裁量权加大,更依赖会计职业判断。会计职业判断涉及公司的契约成本,影响经理人员的决策行为,改变公司投资与经营活动,最终对公司的价值产生影响。恰当的会计职业判断能够公允地反映客观发生的经济事项的实质,为利益相关者提供真实的会计信息,从而对有限的社会资源进行合理配置。但因会计契约的不完全性等多种因素影响,企业管理者往往会权衡背离标准带来的收益,而选择合法背离会计规则的逆向会计职业判断行为,以实现某些特定目标。本文试图通过对上市公司逆向会计职业判断的理论分析和成因探析,找到最有效的应对此类行为发生的策略。     

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.     

Global Ex-vessel Fish Price Database Revisited: A New Approach for Estimating ‘Missing’ Prices

The Global Ex-vessel Fish Price Database (Ex-vessel DB) reported in Sumaila et al. (J Bioecon 9(1):39–51, 2007) was the first comprehensive database that presents average annual ex-vessel prices for all commercially exploited marine fish stocks by nationality of the fishing fleet. It contained over 30,000 reported price items, covering the period from 1950 to the present, and supplemented missing prices with estimates based on prices from a different year, species group or fleet nationality. This paper describes a revised missing price estimation approach, focused on the computation of annual average international prices for each species group, adjusted to domestic prices using the real exchange rate based on national purchasing power parity. Key advantages of the new approach are that it allows a larger number of reported prices to be used in the price estimation, and accounts for relative price level differences that exist between countries. Our new approach should improve the estimates in regions where reported prices are scarce or non-existent by linking domestic prices to the trends in international prices. Our analysis, based on the revised ex-vessel price estimates (in real 2005 USD), shows that the global marine fisheries landings have generated total value of USD 4.2 trillion since 1950, including USD 100 billion in 2005.     

Capacity and Capacity Utilization in Common-pool Resource Industries

Excess capacity poses one of the most pressingproblems that arise when industries exploitcommon-pool natural resources. It entailsover-investment in the capital stock andexcessive use of variable inputs, and placesadditional exploitation pressures on theresource stocks. Confusion persists over theappropriate definition and measurement ofcapacity and capacity utilization for theseindustries. But understanding capacity and itsmeasurement is necessary to properly design acapacity management program. This paperaddresses these issues by overviewing theconceptual and theoretical bases for capacityand capacity utilization measurement,identifying specific problems for common-poolresources, outlining alternative methodologiesfor their measurement, and illustrating the useof these definitions and measurement methods ina fisheries case study.     

Fishing Revenue, Productivity and Product Choice in the Alaskan Pollock Fishery

A key element in evaluating fishery management strategies is examining their effects on the economic performance of fishery participants, yet nearly all empirical studies of fisheries focus exclusively on the amount of fish harvested. The economic benefits derived from fish stocks involve the amount of revenue generated from fish processing, which is linked to both the way fish are harvested and the products produced from the fish. In this study we econometrically estimate a flexible revenue function for catcher-processor vessels operating in the Alaskan pollock fishery, recognizing potential endogeneity and a variety of fishing inputs and conditions. We find significant own-price supply responses and product substitutability, and enhanced revenues from increased fishing days and tow duration after a regulatory change introduced property rights through a new fishing cooperative. We also find significant growth in economic productivity, or higher revenues over time after controlling for observed productive factors and price changes, which exceeds that attributable to increased harvest. These patterns suggest that the move to rights-based management has contributed significantly to economic performance in the pollock fishery.     

Are the new rules relating to disclosures of derivative financial instruments workable?

Accounting for derivatives has created uncertainties for preparers, auditors, regulators, and users of financial statements alike. The complexity and variety of instruments as well as hedging and risk management techniques make derivatives reporting a difficult subject. Developing consistent accounting rules in this area is made even more challenging since derivatives are used in conjunction with assets and liabilities that, under the current accounting system, may be carried at historical cost, fair value, or some hybrid of fair value and historical cost. Further, derivatives are used in connection with portfolios of items as well as with economic assets and exposures that may not be recorded in financial statements under the current model.     

基于生态系统服务的绿色GDP核算方法初探

绿色GDP核算是通过将资源环境成本纳入国民经济核算中来实现环境管理的一种有效的经济手段。如何合理地计算资源环境成本是绿色GDP核算的技术难点,也是生态经济研究领域的热点问题。本文充分分析了已有绿色GDP核算的两种思路,即或在GDP核算体系中扣除环境污染、资源损耗的成本,或增加生态系统服务的价值。展望了绿色GDP核算的新的方向,即将环境污染、资源损耗成本和自然生态系统服务所带来的环境效益都纳入绿色GDP核算之中。     

Stability and Success of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations

According to international law, straddling fish stocks should be managed cooperatively through regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). This paper analyzes the stability and success of these organizations through a game in partition function form based on the classical Gordon-Schaefer bioeconomic model. Results show that the larger the number of fishing states that compete for the fish stock the higher are the relative gains from full cooperation, but the lower is the likelihood of large RFMOs being stable. It is also shown that new entrants increase the incentives of RFMO members to leave and decrease the incentives of non-members to join it. Moreover, the success of coalition formation is positively correlated with the degree of cost asymmetry among fishing states and negatively with the overall level of efficiency.     

人力资源会计模式刍议

人力资源成本会计从投入角度核算企业在人力资产方面的花费;人力资源价值会计反映人力资源的潜在价值;而劳动者权益会计则是反映人力资源作为一项会计要素参与企业的经济剩余分配,它对人力资源成本会计和价值会计两种模式进行了改革,从根本上解决了产权归属问题。     

ACCOUNTING FOR EXHAUSTIBLE RESOURCES IN THE CANADIAN SYSTEM OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS: FLOWS, STOCKS AND PRODUCTIVITY MEASURES

The paper shows that the Canadian System of National Accounts includes exhaustible resources but treats them as if they were produced goods. Thus, the claim that conventional accounts ignore the contribution of exhaustible natural resources is partly true. To fully account for exhaustible resources, we present an alternative national accounting framework that incorporates natural resource flows and stocks. The framework modifies the measure of the net domestic product by a factor that differs from the Hartwick-Solow-Weitzman rule and leads to different estimates of GDP, national wealth, and productivity growth. An application to the Canadian oil and gas industry shows order-of-magnitude effects.     

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.     

公允价值运用评价——基于美国公司财务报告的分析

会计业一直处于不断变化的状态.在美国历史成本原则传统上一直被认为是会计核算的基础.直到现在,除了特定的金融资产和金融负债,当资产和负债发生时,仍然也是按照取得时价款进行计量.然而,美国财务会计准则委员会(Financial Accounting Standards Board,FASB)发布的会计准则与历史成本计量原则越来越远.2006年9月FASB发布了财务会计准则公告157号:公允价值计量(SFAS157,现在编纂为会计准则汇编Accounting Standards Codificatio 820,ASC 820),2007年2月FASB发布了财务会计准则159号:金融资产和金融负债的公允价值选择(SFAS159,现编纂为ASC 825-10-25),这两个准则极大地提升了公允价值会计的有效性.文章通过对美国公司财务报告的研究和分析,论述了公允价值的优缺点和由于公允价值的运用给不同股东带来的影响.