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The author comments on the article "Stranded Capital in Fisheries: The Pacific Coast Groundfish/Whiting Case," by James E. Wilen which appeared in a 2009 issue. He notes the failure of the article to deliver useful insights into either avoiding redistributive policy design or ex-post mitigation of damages. He explains why experiences from deregulation lend no insight into fisheries rationalization policy design. He also addresses the claim that including processors in rationalization policy design undermines the regular competition process.

Preliminary estimates of the value of individual processing quota in the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery are presented. Implications for processor participation in the benefits of crab rationalization are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) red king crab fisheries are managed with a controversial, market-based policy design, in which both individual transferable fishing and processing quotas are used. Despite the fact that the policy design maintains contestable markets, concern remains that the use of individual transferable processing quota (IPQ) damages harvesters who receive individual transferable fishing quota (IFQ). An integer, nonlinear optimization model that incorporates an empirically estimated, non-linear catch per unit effort function is developed to measure imputed IFQ values. The imputed quota values are based solely on harvesting efficiency in the absence of IPQs or potential wealth redistribution between sectors. Results are compared to a pre-rationalization optimization model and also to empirical quota trading prices in the presence of IPQs. This with and without analysis lends insight into whether and/or the extent to which IPQs damaged BSAI crab harvesters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) governs management of fisheries located three to 200 miles off the coast of the United States. The MSA is unique in administrative law in that it devolves policy formulation to eight Regional Fishery Management Councils rather than to a federal agency. That agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), is relegated primarily to developing regulations that implement the councils' policies. NMFS can review the councils' policies only to ensure that they are consistent with existing laws. NMFS has no authority to revise policy to suit its own preferences, or to write regulations that undercut council policy intent, except when conflicts with other applicable laws arise. The MSA's legislative history reveals NMFS routinely undercuts this special administrative process through the regulations it writes. We review a recent example in which NMFS attempted to undermine the North Pacific Fishery Management Council's crab rationalization policy through the regulation-writing process. We offer a simple solution to help avoid future abuse of administrative authority. This solution may have utility in other areas of administrative law in which authority to formulate policy is separated from the power to implement it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the two largest individual transferable fishing quota (IFQ) policies in the United States impacted halibut and sablefish processors. A survey of processors was conducted to estimate the change in processing sector welfare, measured as the change in quasi rents before and after IFQs. The policy was efficient and harvesters were left much better off. However, most processors did not participate in the rationalization benefits and, on average, were left worse off. Expanding the survey results to the pre-IFQ population, it is estimated that the halibut processing sector lost 56% of its prior quasi rents, while sablefish processors lost 76%. Eighty-two percent of the pre- IFQ halibut processors and 96% of the sablefish processors were estimated to be absolutely worse off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States Congress recently passed a law that creates an alternative to individual transferable quota (ITQ) management. The American Fisheries Act promises the ability to rationalize one of the world's largest fisheries, the North Pacific pollock fishery, without the overt appearance of allocating permanent property rights to a public resource. The Act enabled pollock fishers to form cooperative bargaining units that are guaranteed a fixed share of the total allowable catch (TAC) providing they deliver to historic processors. This paper explores the evolution of that policy change and the innovative use of fishery cooperatives to advance voluntary decapitalization and rationalization that Congress intended to benefit both vessels and processors. Game theory offers insights into the likelihood of achieving congressional intent. It is argued that while the Act is Pareto improving, it may violate the legislative intent of win-win rationalization and may introduce a market failure while attempting to rid the fishery of the open-access externality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the use of commercial fisheries data to estimate a catch per unit effort-soak time relationship for the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery to gain regulatory and in-season management insight. Stock assessment; Influence of biological and environmental effects on the behavioral responses of crabbers to changing natural and regulatory conditions.

Because of concern about the inability to manage the Bristol Bay red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) fishery in Alaska and, in particular, to use in-season fishery performance to close the fishery at or near the preseason guideline harvest level, increasingly stringent pot limits were adopted to elongate the collapsing seasons. This paper provides a rigorous examination of the effect that pot limits had on season elongation and whether a redistribution of wealth occurred between large and small fishing vessels as a result of the policy. A simulation model of the fishery shows that pot limits did not elongate the season sufficiently to improve in-season management. Moreover, the policy allowed vessels to capture efficiency gains arising from an industry-wide reduction in fishing capacity. Both vessel size classes benefited from mutual gear reduction in all years except 1992. Redistribution of wealth was found to occur only in one year of the five years examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]