A Review of Selected Bioeconomic Models with Environmental Influences in Fisheries

Abstract

Bioeconomic models are integrated economic-ecological models, with all the advantages and disadvantages of such models. Most bioeconomic modelling seeks appropriate levels of stock and catch to assist resource managers, normally with environmental conditions assumed constant. However, bioeconomic models can be used to analyse the welfare effects of changes in environmental quality as well. This latter application is the subject of this review. The review concentrates on the commercial harvesting of fish stocks, where population dynamics are influenced by environmental quality. In the first part of the paper, the basic static and dynamic bioeconomic models are described and then extensions are considered that take account of the influence of environmental quality on habitat and, by inference, on sustainable catch levels and measures of economic surplus. The second part of the paper describes a series of case studies from the empirical bioeconomic literature that apply some of the theoretical innovations described earlier.