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This paper reviews the impact of articles published in the Marine Resource Economics (MRE) and within the field of fisheries economics in general over the period 1954-2004. Specific attention is given to the years 1984-2004, which is the period that MRE has been published. The degree of influence is assessed using citation analysis. I present the most cited papers in MRE, the top ten all time cited fisheries economics papers, and the most cited papers during each decade over the last 30 years. By analysing the trend of recently published papers, I can assess which ones are projected to be most influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one on some of the reasons why the U.S. lags behind most nations in aquaculture, one on the use of the partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) in the context of managing the endangered habitat of seabirds, and one on the association between redfish stocks and cold water coral habitat.

Individual transferable quota (ITQ) regimes have been adopted in a number of fisheries. While the issue of market power in such regimes has been discussed, this paper contributes to the literature by solving for explicit expressions for harvesting, quota price, and efficiency loss. In addition to supporting the previous findings, the explicit solution indicates that the cost of the market leader in relation to the fringe, as well as the size of the fringe, affects the magnitude of the efficiency loss. Inspired by the Norwegian Northeast Arctic cod fishery, the paper is among the first to provide a numerical illustration of the efficiency loss of market power in a rights-based regime for fisheries. The model is simulated for two cost functions, wherein one allows for exit from the fishery. The numerical results support the theoretical findings and indicate that generally, the efficiency loss of the market power is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates a hedonic price function for hake using data from a fish auction market in Northern Spain. The model includes some variables that have not been previously considered in the literature, such as the number of boats present at the auction, the number of buyers, the number of yearly landings at this port by boats, the effect of holidays, and the order of the boat in the auction, which is the main variable of interest. Aside from confirming that well-known fish characteristics (such as size and freshness) contribute to higher prices, the results show that boat order has a quadratic relationship with price, implying that there is an optimal order in the auction. Furthermore, the results also show that fishmongers pay higher prices than do larger buyers, that boats that land more often at the port get a premium, and that lower prices are reached on the days before and after a holiday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper chronicles my fisheries compliance and enforcement research during the past 40 years. My colleagues and I at the University of Rhode Island began researching fisheries law enforcement issues around 1980 because of the high degree of noncompliance in fisheries managed by the New England Fisheries Management Council. We collected data and demonstrated that the pure deterrence model does not explain fisheries compliance behavior well. This set us on a course to develop an enriched model of compliance behavion The formal enriched model accounts for tangible and intangible motivations influencing individuals' compliance decisions, resulting in better explanations of the evidence than the pure deterrence model. The model also provides practical and superior policy prescriptions. Although the enriched model is superior to the basic pure deterrence model, much research remains to be done on explaining compliance behavior and crafting more efficient and effective compliance and regulatory programs in fisheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of individual harvesting rights, such as IQs, has substantially improved the economics of numerous fisheries around the world. Unfortunately, many developing nations cannot employ these management systems because they lack the ability to enforce them. This paper argues that in many of these fisheries, properly designed community rights-based management regimes (CFMRs) will both greatly simplify the enforcement problem and create conditions conducive to economically efficient fisheries. The key features of such a CFMR for Lake Victoria fisheries are outlined and its workings explained. The essence of the system is the allocation of strong harvesting rights, similar to IQs, to the lake's fishing communities combined with total allowable catch (TAC) limits for the entire lake. The net economic benefits of a project to design, install, and operate this CFMR are estimated. While the estimated net benefits are highly positive, they are much smaller than the attainable net economic surplus obtainable from the fishing activity only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A representative and unbiased fish price index is an important tool to measure price risk, as well as for production and marketing management. This paper investigates the relationship between one of the primary price indices of farmed salmon, the Fish Pool Index, and the stock prices of major publicly traded salmon companies. We document that stock prices reflect salmon price information earlier than the Fish Pool Index. Furthermore, this effect is shown to be greater for larger companies. This identifies a possible source of bias in the salmon futures pricing design that relies on the index, which can negatively affect the perceived unbiasedness of contracting. The results also point to potential company-size effects on salmon pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's views of a paper titled "Common Property Resources and the Dynamics of Overexploitation: The Case of the North Pacific Fur Seal" by James E. Wilen.

The waters around Suffolk County, New York, are plagued by water quality concerns from nitrogen inputs, algal blooms, and eutrophication. Meanwhile, waterfront and near-water homes fuel a robust real estate market with many iconic regions, such as the Hamptons. Aging cesspools and septic systems are a paramount concern in the area. With approximately 74% of homes outside sewer systems, several jurisdictions are evaluating approaches to funding retrofits that would improve septic systems and water quality. It is therefore an ideal location to assess the impact that water quality has on home values; this paper investigates property sales near the Long Island Sound, South Shore Bays, and Peconic Estuary System. Results show that water quality has a significant impact on nearby home sales, with the largest effects generally seen nearest to the coastline. These results inform a discussion about potential benefits and costs of widespread septic tank and cesspool retrofitting, which is currently incentivized by grant and loan programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We revisit three recently published papers that apply discrete choice experiment methods to coastal and marine ecosystem goods and services, in light of attribute non-attendance (ANA). We find that accounting for ANA does not always improve model fit, but when it does, the improvement can be substantial. Estimated price and attribute coefficients change, but these changes do not follow a consistent pattern, in either direction or magnitude. Mean attribute increment value (i.e., willingness to pay, WTP) estimates change, but also with no discernible pattern. However, in several cases, generally in those cases where accounting for ANA improves model fit, we observe substantial improvements in the confidence intervals on WTP; that is, accounting for ANA appears to produce much more precise WTP estimates. In short, we find that accounting for ANA is not always warranted, but when it is, the key payoff appears to be more precise WTP estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the degree of market integration between several product forms of US wild salmon and Norwegian farmed salmon. While several studies have investigated the link between farmed salmon and fresh and/or frozen wild salmon markets, we expand the literature with the inclusion of the products canned salmon and salmon roe. Understanding how canned salmon and salmon roe are related to the broader salmon market is of importance to US fisheries, as these products are high-price exports for the United States. Our results find evidence of cointegration between the Norwegian farmed salmon market and all US salmon products. Domestic and international economic conditions, such as production technological advances within farmed salmon production, environmental challenges, and changes in trade regulations, which affect the market for farmed salmon, will hence also influence US prices of frozen and canned salmon, as well as salmon roe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the effects of uncertain output prices upon fishers' location choices. It employs ARIMA models to construct the price forecasts used by fishers in a model which generates expected profits for three fishing locations in the British Columbia salmon fishery. A random utility model of fishing location choice is then estimated using two different sets of regressors. The first is expected seasonal profit and its variability. The second is expected wealth and its variability, where expected wealth is taken to be the sum of the known preseason wealth and the expected profitability of a given fishing location. Results show that expected profitability is a significant determinant of fishing location choice but that expected wealth plays an even bigger role. This suggests that there is a type of wealth or stock effect present in decisions made by fishers. The results also provide evidence that the variability of profits or wealth is generally a less significant component in regard to fishing location choice. In fact, some fishers thrive on greater variability, thereby providing some evidence of the risk loving behaviour typically attributed to fishers. This is not the case, however, for all fishers since some are found to be risk-neutral and even risk-averse. Given the finding that fishers do respond to economic incentives, one policy implication concerns the ability of fisheries managers to alter the dispersion of fishers over fishing locations via the adjustment of the economic incentives by means of differential royalty taxes. A second policy implication results from the finding of risk-loving behaviour. This calls into question models that assume risk-averse behaviour and predict a dominance of crop-sharing contracts over wage contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive review and synthesis of studies that forecast economic impacts of ocean acidification. The changes in seawater chemistry resulting from increased carbon dioxide emissions, known as ocean acidification, will have detrimental impacts to marine ecosystem services. Those services include wild capture fisheries, aquaculture, recreation, shoreline protection, and others. The current literature valuing expected impacts to those services is rather thin and tends to focus on mollusk harvesting and aquaculture. Despite the paucity of studies, we divide all relevant estimates into five additively separable economic sectors to provide an aggregate estimate of economic damage from ocean acidification at the end of this century. We perform nonparametric bootstrap simulations to characterize the distribution of estimates within each sector and the aggregation across sectors. We also perform meta-regressions to explore whether estimates provided by these studies are generally consistent with expectations based on ocean chemistry and economic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US is the world's largest seafood importer by value, with an increasing share of imports composed of farmed seafood. Despite numerous policy initiatives, production and growth in the US aquaculture sector is limited, and there is a significant literature discussing potential explanations. In this paper the recent success of imported branzino is used to show that the market is not a constraint. Branzino is a portion-sized white-fleshed fish primarily farmed in the Mediterranean, with no obvious equivalents produced in the US. Since the turn of the century, imports have grown from zero to almost 10,000 metric tons, a quantity that would have made it the fourth-largest farmed fish species if produced in the US, and all is imported fresh. From 2015 when the quantities became more significant, the species entered the large whitefish market, although with a significant price premium relative to tilapia, the largest species in this market, indicating that the opportunity to create separate niches in the seafood market is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was written as thanks for compliments offered at award proceedings at the 2010 IIFET. It deals with the past and future of fishery economics. A short historical account (or "pedigree") shows that while fisheries have been mentioned by historians of old economies, their writings chiefly covered only the fish trade. This was also true of early economists, such as Petty and Adam Smith. It was marine biologists who were to show the way. Around the time of the Great War , the first bits of genuine fishery economic analysis appeared. These, however , were generally disregarded until Scott Gordon' s 1954 article caused what Thomas Kuhn calls a "revolution." My own paper appeared a year later . There followed what looked like decades of comparative calmness in ocean economics. The advent of individual catch quotas has now widened and deepened the interest in fishery problems and those "paradigms" related to them, such as those appropriate to fishery self-government. The new problems and possibilities have drawn in lively and creative participants. They work in the front ranks of applied economics, and the author is proud to have been honoured by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates that the number of trips a person takes to a recreation site can be treated as a utility index of value, which has useful implications. We demonstrate that trip counts, taken as a utility index, embody information about site quality, the cost of reaching the site, and substitute sites. The result has practical value for assessing compensatory restoration projects and conducting benefits transfer. The finding is derived from a linear-in-parameters random utility maximization (RUM) model, the "workhorse" of recreation demand modeling, and so inherits the limitations of this model. An empirical analysis based on a marine recreational fishing example shows that the approximation is reliable as long as the number of trips to the site is a small fraction of the total trips to all sites. In addition, we show that the potential magnitude of the error from using the approximation is comparable to the magnitude of the error for estimates of changes in welfare when using alternative travel cost assumptions. We also show (and it follows from the utility index logic) that the inverse of the travel cost coefficient is a "portable" per-trip value that may be used in benefit transfer. Finally, we discuss theoretical and practical limitations. We refer to our result as "trip equivalency." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual fishing quotas give fishers incentives to reduce costs (or increase productivity), lengthen the harvest season and increase price by improving catch quality. To what extent each of these three effects will be present when the management system is changed in a specific fishery depends on the characteristics of the fishery and on the markets and supply chains served. This paper uses a difference-in-differences approach to investigate the impact on all three outcomes of a regulatory change that introduced individual fishing quotas with some transferability for a group of coastal vessels in the Norwegian whitefish fisheries. The results indicate higher ex-vessel prices after the regulatory change, which imply higher quality of the fish landed, but show no significant extension of the fishing season or reduction of the average cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in sea surface temperature (SST), a consequence of climate change, may lead to large-scale redistributions of global fish catch, including tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO). This paper applies the production function approach for modeling catch and SST using high-resolution gridded data for yellowfin and skipjack tuna catch in the EPO. We find a positive but nonlinear (i.e., logarithmic and quadratic) relationship between SST and the carrying capacity of tuna fisheries. The marginal product varies across species, distance from the equator, and the fishing method. For yellowfin tuna, the largest increase in catch occurs for unassociated and dolphin sets in the Northern EPO, while for skipjack tuna the largest increases in catch occur for unassociated and floating object sets in the Southern EPO. These thermal responses to ocean warming may lead to more segregated distribution and increased specialization in effort across the Eastern Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on recreation site amenities is often sparse. Not only does this information scarcity have the potential to limit recreation activity, particularly if it causes users to forego recreation opportunities, but it also limits the ability of coastal communities to best allocate resources across site amenities to meet the needs of current and potential users and maximize the value of marine resources. In this paper, we estimate travel cost models that make use of a new dataset on fishing site characteristics to investigate the degree to which a large vector of amenities influences the site choice decisions of recreational anglers fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. We also uncover an important role of racial, ethnic, and income diversity considerations in recreation decision-making. We contextualize the valuation estimates, and combined with the findings of angler tendencies to avoid diversity, discuss the implications for coastal resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction to the special section, "The Economics of Coastal Communities," we emphasize lesser-known or understudied connections between marine resources and communities in an effort to extend the lens of study beyond the economics of seafood. Facing pressure from all sides, resource managers, government agencies, and other entities have been calling for greater attention to these issues among researchers across disciplines. We provide a snapshot of how different organizations funding research and other innovation initiatives prioritize addressing current and future challenges in coastal regions. We summarize the complex setting of coastal communities as presented in the four papers in this section and outline points of departure for future research in the context of marine industries moving forward along the green transition path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores why salmon harvesters in rural Alaska choose to sell their transferable permits. Household survey data from 10 remote Alaskan villages is combined with data on individual landings. Drift permit holders are more likely to sell their permits when average permit prices are low due to volatility in salmon runs or competition from aquaculture. These participants in the capital-intensive sector of the fishery are more likely to be in debt and liquidate assets under financial duress. Conversely, set net permit holders are more likely to liquidate their assets following life events such as the birth of a child or a divorce. For both types of permit holders, covariate shocks to salmon runs and prices are more important predictors of sale than individual productivity within the fishery. These results demonstrate that in the context of highly variable salmon runs, the transferability of property rights may undermine the economic sustainability of coastal communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioeconomic modeling and seafood market analysis both have rich intellectual traditions that have contributed insights to understanding the economics of aquatic foods. This paper argues that these traditions, which developed mostly in parallel, should be combined more purposefully to understand management problems in fisheries and aquaculture. First, modeling the feedback between economic incentives and biological mechanisms is essential for avoiding management failure, and prices provide important incentives. Second, the form of management affects opportunities to generate value, influencing patterns of exploitation and the types of products that come from fishery resources. Third, price incentives in fisheries and responses to management depend on market context, including competition with aquaculture. By combining these insights with a modern empirical focus on counterfactuals, including both reduced-form and structural modeling approaches to causal inference, economists can inform policy and help to deliver a wide range of values from the production and consumption of aquatic foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bait tuna vessels in developing coastal countries often compete with artisanal fishers for small pelagic species such as anchovies. Owing to the capital-intensive nature of tuna fishing, the vessels are characteristically foreign owned; the catches are exported; and they pay access fees to the host country. By contrast, the artisanal canoes are owned by the nationals and the fish landed are consumed locally. In addition, fish aggregating devices (FADs), such as artificial lights used to catch the baitfish, destroy marine ecosystems. In this paper a bioeconomic model for fish resource allocation, which accounts for the ownership of the tuna fishing vessels and environmental opportunity costs owing to destructive fishing practices, has been developed. From the model, I have verified the extent to which suboptimal equilibrium solutions deviate from social optimal outcomes under different scenarios. Moreover, I have derived an expression for optimal (ad valorem) tax enough to maximize rents from the two stocks. The optimum solutions are characterized using data on tuna and anchovy fishing in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overfishing has become a major global issue that endangers ecosystems and the livelihoods of millions of people. Weak enforcement and illicit fishing behaviors limit the effectiveness of institutional arrangements designed to curb overfishing. In this paper, we designed and tested a series of potential interventions to reduce overexploitation driven by illegal fishing. We use surveys, interviews, and common pool resource experiments to investigate the behavior of Mexican fishermen in the upper part of the Gulf of Baja California. We find that resource exploitation can be reduced using a mechanism that regroups fishermen according to their past fishing exploitation levels. More precisely, we observe that the announcement of this mechanism and the actual regrouping reduce common pool exploitation, regardless of group composition. Further experimental evidence shows that the regrouping intervention also achieves the desired outcomes in environments with informational asymmetries or regrouping imperfections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsidies are part of the set of management tools that governments apply to modernize their fishing fleets and enable them to engage in offshore and international fisheries. Research has shown that subsidies often lead to overcapacity and overfishing, resulting in the depletion of fish stocks. A few studies, however, have found some positive effects for particular subsidies. In this paper, we investigate a credit-linked subsidy scheme in Vietnam, which seems to be justified on the basis of economic, social, and environmental considerations. Both propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression methods are employed for analysis. The results show that the subsidies have had a positive effect on fishermen's profitability, mainly because of increased revenue rather than reduced cost. However, the subsidies have benefited the owners of only the biggest vessels, and inefficiency in subsidized vessels may threaten resources and profitability in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the overexploitation of the North Pacific Fur Seal. Topics discussed include development of resource and fisheries economics, generalization of the Gordon model of open access, and a predator-prey model with a human predator for establishing resource economics as an empirical science.

Seaweed harvest has denuded many areas of the sea floor, threatening marine ecosystems and the livelihood of coastal communities. Recently, small operators have begun to cultivate seaweed. This paper studies the role of fishing and agriculture, and their interactions with risk and time preferences, in the uptake of seaweed aquaculture. We use a Heckman selection model to study the decision to participate and expansion of production in seaweed aquaculture in Chile. We find that experience with seaweed farming, ecological benefits, and perception of well-suited areas increase participation in seaweed aquaculture. In addition, more contacts within the industry, a surveillance system against theft, and a shorter authorization period to farm increase seaweed production. Among land farmers, while more risk-tolerant producers participate more in seaweed aquaculture, more patient producers cultivate higher levels. We argue that policy design should consider the particularity of other sectors that are synergetic with aquaculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high price of flying fish eggs in Japan encourages South Sulawesi fishermen in Indonesia to harvest increasing quantities of eggs every year. Similarly, the increasing local demand for flying fish encourages Indonesian fishermen to use gill nets to catch more fish. As a consequence of this increasing quantity of eggs harvested and fish caught, Indonesia has become concerned about the overexploitation of the flying fish population. Thus far policy suggestions concerning the management of the flying fish fishery have been based on a static biological model, since the data needed to construct a dynamic bioeconomic model are very limited. This paper presents a method for constructing a dynamic bioeconomic model of the Indonesian flying fish fishery with very limited data on the fish population. A calibration technique is developed to build the dynamic biological model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the economics of catch discarding in fisheries. To study this issue a simple dynamic fisheries model is constructed. On the basis of this model it is demonstrated that in a differentiated fishery discarding of catch may be socially optimal. The paper goes on to show that individual firms in a free access, competitive fishery employ the socially optimal discarding rule. In contrast, the individual transferable quota (ITQ) fisheries management regime tends to generate an excessive incentive for discarding catch. The problem, however, does not appear to derive from the ITQ system as such. Rather, it seems to depend on the imperfect application of the system to real fisheries. The concept of a discarding function is defined and it is shown that at least within the framework of the model employed the discarding function for an ITQ fishery dominates the one for free access, competitive fisheries. Numerical examples are provided. Finally, possible remedies of the discarding problem are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of economic development and food safety concerns, an increasing number of middle-class consumers in China are demanding higher-quality food and more environmentally friendly food production methods. In this paper, we design a choice experiment to assess Chinese consumers' preference for high-quality imported salmon through their willingness to pay (WTP) for various product attributes, especially the production environment attribute. We included a policy consequentiality script at the beginning of the survey and a consequentiality perception check at the end to test the effect of the device on Chinese consumers' survey responses. The results show that Chinese consumers value the safety certification label of salmon with the highest premium, followed by chilled, wild-caught, and dark red color attributes of salmon. The WTP premiums from the consumers who were provided with the consequentiality script are significantly lower than those from consumers not provided with such a script, and the consequentiality perceptions are also enhanced by the script treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing aquaculture industry is facing several challenges including risks and uncertainties. Studies exploring farmers' risk perceptions and risk management strategies are, however, limited within pond aquaculture, although they are well described within the field of agriculture. This study explores farmers' risk perceptions and risk management strategies in pond aquaculture and the relationship of risk perceptions and risk management strategies with farm and farmers' characteristics. The data are analyzed using principal component analysis and multivariate regression. The results show that price variability and financial risks are perceived as the most influential risk factors. Farm management and financing are perceived as the most effective risk management strategies. In most cases, farmers need to focus on more than one risk management strategy to address a particular type of risk. This study provides knowledge of farmers' risk perceptions and strategies, which can be used to develop better and more focused management strategies. The authors would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments that helped substantially to improve the paper. The authors would also like to thank the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) for its financial support for the project "Upgrading Pangas and Tilapia Value Chains in Bangladesh," project number F38A26778, under which this research was conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes data from a split-sample discrete choice experiment to investigate the impact of including an employment attribute on stated preferences for protecting the coastal zone of Arctic Norway. The econometric analysis investigates how its inclusion affects attention to other choice experiment dimensions, and how welfare measures vary between the two subsamples and across models that control for attribute non-attendance versus models that do not. We find that the employment attribute has a relatively high attendance rate and that its inclusion does not appear to decrease attention to other attributes of interest. The impact of the added attribute on the part-worth estimates for environmental attributes is mixed. However, similar to prior research, we find that controlling for attribute non-attendance tends to yield lower welfare estimates. Lastly, our analysis indicates somewhat higher attention to the cost attribute than many previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the impact of the advance of property rights in fisheries upon the management of internationally shared fishery resources. The management of these shared fishery resources did, in fact, come to prominence because of a revolutionary advance in state property rights to fishery resources through the advent of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) regime. The revolution in state property rights to fishery resources is not yet complete, however. The incompleteness of the revolution, it is argued, creates serious difficulties for the effective management for an important class of shared fishery resources, namely straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. The paper then discusses the impact, actual and potential, of the development of private property rights in fisheries upon the management of these resources. The discussion is speculative, however, and can be no more than that until there has been further advances in the game theoretic analysis of shared fish stock management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For fish stocks where the unit price of harvest is constant and unit harvest costs are independent of quantity and non-increasing in biomass, regulation based on target escapement (TE) has been shown to optimise the net present value (NPV) of harvest to society. This result has also been shown to hold for fish stocks characterised by stochastic recruitment, whereas a more asymptotic approach has been advocated if price depends on quantity. In this paper, these theoretical results are empirically investigated. Our case is the Norwegian spring spawning herring fishery, a stock with stochastic recruitment and price decreasing in harvest. For this fishery, the theoretical results are verified in that TE can no longer claim optimality. At constant prices, TE is found to outperform a more gradual approach, but this comes at a cost of a lower expected spawning stock at the end of the period investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asymmetry in price transmission has recently attracted much attention in the food literature, but hitherto this important issue has been overlooked in fish and fish product market studies. This paper seeks to fill this gap, and thus takes the fisheries market literature closer to the general food literature. To this end, an asymmetric error correction price transmission model has been estimated for the whole fresh French hake value chain. This paper tests for cointegration between auction and retail prices using the Engle and Granger two-step method, and the Enders and Granger Threshold Autoregression (TAR) and Momentum Autoregression (M-TAR) methodologies. The results present clear evidence of asymmetric price transmission in the whole hake value chain and that the assumption of symmetric adjustment in this sector produces misleading and biased results. The price response behaviour of retailers is found to be consistent with asymmetric price transmission: retailers immediately respond to positive changes in auction prices by adjusting their prices upward, but they do not react as quickly to falling auction prices. These findings have profound implications for studying margins along the value chain of fish and fish products. By ignoring the asymmetry in price transmission at different levels of the value chain, calculations of margins will be biased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1983 the Northern European anglerfish fishery, exploited by fleets of seven countries, has been regulated using a policy of Total Allowable Catch (TAC). In this paper, the strategy followed by the European Union (EU) in distributing the established TAC among the seven countries is explored. It is inferred that the EU has utilized a weighted proportional rule, taking the average catches for the period l973-78 as the reference point. On the other hand, given that the fishery situation for the years 1993, 1994, and 1995 can be characterized as a bankruptcy problem, this paper also explores, as possible means of enriching the Common European Fishery policy, alternatives to this rule. This work proposes the application of two additional rules derived from game theory, the nucleolus and the Shapley value, and studies their properties. The analysis suggests that it may be worth considering not only the proportional distribution, but also the alternative rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two main objectives. The first is to develop a dynamic model of commercial fisheries different from most existing models that assume optimizing behavior. The industry is assumed to have a well-defined index of performance. Based upon this index, the decision to invest or not is made. We do not, however, assume that the industry or firm is efficient or optimal in its operations. The second is that a new approach of fitting model dynamics to time series data is employed to simultaneously estimate the poorly known initial conditions and parameters of nonlinear fisheries dynamics. The approach is a data assimilation technique known as the variational adjoint method. Estimation of the poorly known initial conditions is one of the attractive features of the variational adjoint method [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand for environmental quality of a fishery product and its effect on the incentive to manage fisheries sustainably is analyzed using bioeconomic modeling. The paper examines the effectiveness of an ecolabel in achieving sustainable fisheries production under open-access, limited-access and optimally managed fisheries with price premiums for ecolabeled products that are either constant or a function of sustainability criteria. In addition, the paper investigates the effect of placing an ecolabel on the rate of recovery of an overfished stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic hypothesis of this paper is that the amount of fishing that a fish harvester undertakes during a year is not determined entirely by circumstances which are exogenous to the fisher, such as weather conditions and resource availability, but is also partially a matter of individual choice. The paper develops a behavioral model of fishing from the perspective that the decision to modify the period of time over which fishing takes place is governed by a comparison of the marginal benefits and costs of doing so. The model is tested econometrically as an error-components model using a 10% longitudinal sample of recipients of seasonal fishermen's unemployment insurance benefits in Newfoundland over the period 1971--93. The results suggest that the Canadian unemployment insurance program has reduced the length of the fishing season in Newfoundland by about 8--10 weeks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of fisheries management is to avoid over-investment in fleet capacity and over-exploitation of economically exploitable fish stocks. In this paper a model is developed where a (big) share of rents created by control accrues to boat owners while costs are covered by the general public, which also gets a (small) share of the rent. The distribution of rent is governed by administrative rule which opens the possibility of profitable rent seeking. Cost of control is assumed to increase as rent per boat increases. Control outlays are assumed to be determined so as to maximize gains to the general public. It is shown that the optimal size of the fishing fleet exceeds the size that maximizes fishery rent. It is also shown that the higher the share that accrues to the general public, the closer the optimal fleet size is to the rent-maximizing fleet size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports the results of an analysis of the economic interrelationships in Florida's commercial near-shore fishery. A dual-based revenue function is specified to estimate own-price and cross-price elasticities of supply for selected key species and to estimate the marginal value of effort. Empirical findings indicate the fishery is characterized by joint production among all species pairs and that the complementarity of production is strongest for mullet as compared to any other species. This finding implies that effective management of the near-shore species complement may be possible through management measures designed to reduce the harvest of mullet. The paper concludes by demonstrating the potential effect that restricting harvest on mullet might have on landings of other near-shore species. The amount of compensation payments required to leave commercial harvesters as well off with the management change as without it are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a reply to Eric E. Anderson for his critique of the article written by Charles Plourde and J. Barry Smith about crop sharing in the fishery, published in a 1989 issue of "Marine Resource Economics." Arguments of Anderson; Information on suboptimal contracts; Errors in the conclusion of Anderson.

The regulation of fisheries often requires finding numerical solutions to dynamic optimization problems. This paper presents a version of the "multiple shooting" algorithm and uses it to approximate the dynamic solution to a fisheries problem examined by Conrad (1989): the hunting of the Bowhead whale in the Western Arctic. It is found that the inclusion of dynamic considerations can significantly alter the nature of the policy if the regulated population is not near its steady state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses papers published within the issue, including one on the impact of the 2003 federal buyback program on the geographic distribution of fish landings on the West Coast of the U.S. and another on ownership consideration of catching rights among a few large fishers.

The importance of essential fish habitat in supporting commercial fisheries has received increasing attention in recent years. Bottom trawling is known to cause particularly destructive damage to habitat that is effectively non-renewable, such as cold water corals. This paper applies the production function approach to estimate the link between cold water corals and redfish in Norway. Both the carrying capacity and growth rate of redfish are found to be functions of cold water coral habitat and thus cold water corals can be considered an essential fish habitat. The paper also estimates a facultative relationship between cold water coral and redfish stocks. The essential habitat model shows the best fit to the data. Comparative statics of an essential habitat indicate an approximate annual loss in harvest of between 11 and 29% within the bounds of coral decline estimated by scientists. In terms of policy, our results indicate that essential fish habitat protection should be considered when managing commercially important species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates small boat fishing on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. We develop a model in which anglers choose where to launch their trailered boats, as well as their ocean destination. The model allows us to study spatial aspects of small boat fishing, including the benefits and costs of attributes of different regions of the ocean, such as fish aggregating devices. Second, it allows us to understand the effects of limiting access to various fishing areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of restricting the amount of quota shares that can be owned by a single entity (sometimes called excessive share limits or ownership caps) is almost universal in fisheries managed with ITQs. While there is no general agreement on exactly what this means, the focus is normally on monopoly power and the attainment of management objectives or equity goals. This paper addresses the monopoly power issue and derives a formula for determining the maximum percentage any one entity can control before incentives to withhold production become operative. Implications for general and specific policy analysis are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a presumption that individual transferable quotas (ITQs) will provide incentives to invest optimally in fishing boats. This paper shows that this is not true when the crew is paid a share of the catch value instead of a parametric wage. This system of remuneration distorts investment incentives in an ITQ system of fisheries management and leads to overinvestment, but on a much smaller scale than open access. This can be corrected with a tax on fish landings, but not with a tax on quota holdings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Anthony Scott which proved that property rights were central to problems facing fisheries and another by Rognvaldur Hanneson which considers the limitation of the efficiency of ITQ systems.