Fisheries Economics最新文献

{"title":"Contracting Problems and Regulation: The Case of the Fishery","authors":"Ronald N. Johnson, G. Libecap","doi":"10.4324/9781315193182-21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315193182-21","url":null,"abstract":"The inefficiencies of common property fisheries are of continuing concern to economists.' The early work by Scott Gordon (1954) and Anthony Scott (1955) outlined the problem and later studies by James Crutchfield and Giulio Pontecorvo (1969) and Frederick Bell (1972) provided empirical estimates of the losses that result. Those studies were followed by the dynamic models of Colin Clark (1976), and James Quirk and Vernon Smith (1970) of optimal harvest rates and the use of corrective taxes or quotas to achieve them. But in spite of a large and growing literature and the persuasiveness of the outlined efficiency criteria, most fisheries retain common property aspects with overcapitalization and excessive labor input. Why those conditions persist and the failure of the regulatory response to them are the issues addressed in this paper. We examine a number of fisheries, but focus on the Texas shrimp industry, which is one of the nation's most valuable fisheries for a single species and which shares the common property characteristics observed elsewhere. It is considered overcapitalized and catch per unit of effort is falling.2 Examination of the fishery reveals the many margins along which rent dissipation occurs and the nature of the regulations necessary for controlling fishing effort to avoid those losses. The regulatory environment in Texas is complicated by conflict within the fishery between inshore and offshore fishermen. The latter assert that bay shrimping reduces the number of shrimp that successfully migrate to the Gulf. The inshore fishery is highlighted by another issue-the recent resettlement of some 30-45,000 Vietnamese refugees, including many fishermen, along the Texas Coast (Marine Advisory Service, Paul Starr). Their entry has been met by hostility and violence from existing shrimpers who recognize that they are in an environment characterized by the absence of property rights. Bay shrimpers have lobbied the Texas Legislature for broad limits on new entrants. Yet, ironically, the sale of additional boats by individual shrimpers to the Vietnamese has facilitated entry of the refugees into the fishery. Regulations in the Texas shrimp and other fisheries are incomplete, leaving many options for rent dissipation uncontrolled, because of high contracting costs among fishermen and political factors that mold government actions. Contracting costs are high among heterogeneous fishermen, who vary principally with regard to fishing skill.3 *Montana State University and Texas A&M University, respectively. We benefitted from comments by Terry Anderson, Raymond C. Battalio, Gardner Brown, Oscar Burt, Micha Gisser, Wade Griffin, John R. Moroney, Anthony D. Scott, Peter Temin, and participants in workshops at Texas A&M University and the University of Washington. Research assistance was provided by Scott Barnhart and Phil Mizzi. Funding was provided by Sea Grant, Texas A&M University. 'Throughout this paper we use the terms common property and op","PeriodicalId":305766,"journal":{"name":"Fisheries Economics","volume":"232 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127533303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Optimization and Suboptimization in Fishery Regulation","authors":"R. Turvey","doi":"10.4324/9781315193182-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315193182-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":305766,"journal":{"name":"Fisheries Economics","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132877272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}