The Bioeconomics of Marine Sanctuaries

Consider an offshore fishing grounds of size K. Suppose the grounds has been overfished to the point that net revenue has been driven to zero and the fishery is in open access equilibrium at (X, Y). A marine sanctuary, where fishing is prohibited, is then created. Suppose the marine sanctuary is of size K₂ and that fishing is allowed on a smaller grounds, now of size K₁, where K₁ + K₂ = K. In the first, deterministic, model, the present value of net revenue from the grounds-sanctuary system is maximized subject to migration (diffusion) of fish from the sanctuary to the grounds. The size of the sanctuary is varied, the system is re-optimized, and the populations levels, harvest, and value of the fishery is compared to the 'no-sanctuary' optimum, and the open access equilibrium. In the deterministic model, a marine sanctuary reduces the present value of the fishery relative to the 'ideal' of optimal management of the original grounds. In the second model net growth is subject to stochastic fluctuation. Simulation demonstrates the ability of a marine sanctuary to reduce the variation in biomass on the fishing grounds. Variance reduction in fishable biomass is examined for different-sized sanctuaries when net growth on the grounds and in the sanctuary fluctuate independently and when they are perfectly correlated. For the stochastic model of this paper, sanctuaries ranging in size from 60 to 40% of the original grounds (0.6 K₂/K 0.4) had the ability to lower variation in fishable biomass compared to the no sanctuary case. For a sanctuary equal to or greater than 70% of the original grounds (K₂ 0.7K), net revenue would be nonpositive and there would be no incentive to fish.     

Spotting management fads

Business fads can change companies, for better or worse. They can introduce useful ideas but often fail to deliver on promises. So how can managers tell a fad from a tool that might endure? For one thing, beware of suspiciously simple techniques. If they seem too easy, they probably are.     

Some 'real' problems of 'virtual' organisation

This paper presents an ethnographic study of organisational change in a retail bank considering issues surrounding the supposed emergence of the 'virtual organisation'. It outlines emerging problems in organisational work as a consequence of the shift toward 'virtuality' and questions the explanatory value of such theoretical stances.     

Enjoyment in zoos

Abstract

The range of paid work carried out within the home suggests that a growing number of home‐working individuals will find themselves in distinctive positions in relation to the flows and interconnections of the space–time compression. This has potentially significant consequences for their experience of leisure. This article discusses how space and place within the home are contested issues that manifest in different ways across time. Consideration is made on the fluid nature of the spatial boundaries within the home environment and the impact this has upon the notion of the home as a site of, and for, leisure. The article explores how the home represents a physical setting and a matrix of social relationships, and discusses how this matrix proves especially complex for individuals engaged in home‐based work, particularly when aligned with notions of leisure choices and constraints.     

The Challenge of Humanistic Economics

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the Hospital Compare Program in 2003 to increase transparency between healthcare providers and consumers. Implemented in 2005, this transparency consists of hospitals' collecting and making publicly available a set of hospital quality score measures. The CMS induced participation by financially penalizing hospitals that did not publicly report a specific subset of these measures (called “starter” measures). Three years into the program, the penalty for non-reporting both the starter measures and other (“non-starter”) measures was increased. I use a difference-in-differences methodology to analyze the effect of the increased CMS penalty on the likelihood that a hospital publicly reported its starter and non-starter measure scores. I find that the penalty had an economically and statistically insignificant effect on the probability that a hospital publicly reported its starter scores, but a statistically significant 8.0 percent effect (p-value<0.01) on whether it reported its non-starter scores. These findings are robust to a series of alternative empirical specifications.     

What Makes Rupert Run

Michael Wolff’s new book, The Man Who Owns the News, chroniclesthe career of News Corp. Chairman Ru-pert Murdoch, using his successful $5.6billion bid last year for Wall Street Jour-nal parent Dow Jones as a key plot de-     

A note on an intertemporal cost function for a class of dynamic problems

Some properties of an intertemporal cost function for isoperimetric problems are analyzed. It is demonstrated that the cost function will be strictly decreasing in the length of the horizon T, and under certain conditions, strictly convex in T.     

Editorial

Original Papers

Editorial