An Analysis of the Relationship between Fish Harvesting and Processing Sectors in New England

Abstract

Using annual data from 1981 to 2002, the relationship between harvesting and processing of fish and the effects of imports on processing in New England were analyzed. Additionally, cause and effect relationships between harvesting and processing and between processing and imports were examined using Granger causality tests. Output from the fish processing sector is jointly driven by local fish landings and fish imports and unidirectional causalities exist from local landings to processing and from processing to imports. Generally, processors optimize business operations over multiple species and multiple supply sources. Rebuilding the groundfish stock would not lead to a dramatic and immediate increase in the processing industry. Instead, the actual growth in the processing sector would be relatively smaller than that in the harvesting sector.