Examining the impact of institutions on common pool resource problems: the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy

Abstract

ABSTRACTWhy is there variation in the level of overfishing in European Union member states? The Common Fisheries Policy sets politically-negotiated quotas for fishing, but different states break the quotas at different levels. One answer for this variation lies within the domestic institutions of the member states themselves, in particular the incentives created by various electoral rules. Electoral rules which add more political parties to the decisionmaking process result in greater amounts of overfishing because smaller and smaller blocks of voters are more important in such instances. Evidence in favor of this theory comes from a unique window into fisheries compliance: the ‘scorecards’ produced by the European Commission from 2001 to 2004.