Abstract
This article analyses the effect of productivity improvements on optimal fisheries management. It is shown that when harvest costs are independent of resource stock and the stock is below its steady state level, then for any given stock it is optimal to reduce harvest levels in response to a productivity increase unless optimal harvest rate is already zero. If harvest costs are stock dependent this result is modified; for stock dependent harvest costs there exists an interval of stock sizes below the steady state where it is optimal to reduce the harvest rate for any given stock size whereas if the harvest rate is close to an economically optimal steady state it is optimal to increase the harvest rate.
Highlights
Many of the world’s fisheries are in dire straits because of poor management and poorly delineated property rights with a third of these fisheries labelled unsustainable by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO 2018)
We look at the case where the harvest costs depend on stock size, reflecting that for many fish-species it is easier to catch a unit of fish if the stock is abundant and if the stock of the fish goes to zero, the marginal cost of harvesting a unit of fish goes to infinity
The present paper examines the basic nonlinear control variable biomass fishery model originating from Clark and Munro (1975), and demonstrates in a model of a pure schooling fishery the effects of improved productivity on optimal management
Summary
Many of the world’s fisheries are in dire straits because of poor management and poorly delineated property rights with a third of these fisheries labelled unsustainable by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO 2018). This poor state of affairs has been with us for some time and the costs are substantial (Clark 2005). Brander and Taylor (1997) demonstrated that improved productivity could lead to more aggressive harvesting of open access resources This applies to open access fisheries and fisheries subject to the tragedy of the commons (Whitmarsh 1990; Squires and Vestergaard 2013; Squires and Vestergaard 2018). Kvamsdal et al (2016) point out that even in managed fisheries, “...increased technical efficiency and progress, usually lead to overcapacity in national fishing fleets
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