Fishery Rents Research Articles

ГРАНИЦІ МОДЕЛІ УПРАВЛІННЯ СТАЛИМ РОЗВИТКОМ РИБНИХ РЕСУРСІВ

The article aims to examine sustainable resource management (SRM) models and provide recommendations for fisheries development based on economic rent analysis. The results of the study revealed that Thailand’s bio-economic model for sustainable resource management does not contribute to a sustainable approach to marine bio-resource management because the sustainability of the fishery economy and society is neglected. The model used does not specify the maximum economic yield (MEY) and other parameters affecting the fisheries sector development and failure to ensure the fair use of marine bio-resources and the creation of national wealth and prosperity. Therefore, the estimation method for fishery rent tax by each fishery area should be shifted to a reasonable total production and solving problems on the difference in catch costs by extracting income from excess profits through the accumulation of surplus rents in the form of a sustainable fisheries fund for the development of future fisheries economy projects.

Marine reserve and its consequences in a predator-prey system for ecotourism and fishing

With a marine reserve implementation, this article investigates the effects of introducing density regulation over a fishery. We discuss the inter-relationship between fishing effort and marine reserve with fish biomass, catches, and total rent. It outlines the impacts of exploitation both over maximum sustainable yield and maximum economic yield. We also illustrate some economic consequences of introducing marine reserves on fishery and ecotourism, including the effect of density regulation. Reserve areas can prevent extinction due to over-exploitation, but for a predator-prey interaction, the benefit of the reserve may be diminished. With the increase of density regulation, fish biomass increases, though the absence of reserve catches vanishes as effort exceeds a certain level, irrespective of given importance to density regulation. Finally, we observe that the optimal reserve size corresponding to fisheries management is less than the reserve size when both the fishery rent and ecotourism rent are jointly considered.

FISHERY RENT AND VALUE OF AQUATIC BIORESOURCES

Fishery rent is assessed quantitatively for Russian Federation in 2014–2018. The annual rent value changed from 43 to 110 billion roubles, with the average amount of 88 billion roubles per year. On this basis, the net present value of non-cultivated aquatic living stocks is calculated using the data of official statistics, under assumption of 15 % return of capital. The fishery rent dynamics is determined mainly by the consumers demand (sales price) and the level of production cost. Other parameters, as the amount of capital, its profitability, etc., have smaller impact on the rent. Direct calculating of the aquatic living resources value using the data on total allowable catch (TAC) or commercial stock has large errors and uncertainty in contrast to the method of net present value that accounts the rental income. However, monetary valuation of aquatic living resources by this method requires a correct assessment of social discount rate because of its strong impact on the results of calculation. The social discount rate for Russian Federation varied in the 2014–2018 from 2.13 % to 3.73 % that is considered as a quite low level, typical for developed countries. Taking into account this correction, the value of non-cultivated aquatic living resources in Russian Federation is amounted as 1.4–4.7 trillion roubles in 2014–2018 that is considered as the minimal limit corresponded with an «ideal», undisturbed state of the system. In real, both value of fishery rent and value of fishery resources are affected by a number of officially unreported factors, such as discards and technological losses, which summary impact is assessed as 45 % of the fishery rent or 39 billion roubles per year, on average. Thus, the more realistic value of the non-cultivated aquatic living resources in Russia in 2014–2018 is 2.1–6.4 trillion roubles, on average 4.3 trillion roubles.

Collective Rights–Based Fishery Management: A Path to Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management

Fishery rents may be dissipated across margins not well defined or controlled by an individual transferable quota system. Collective rights–based fishery management (CRBFM), where catch rights are held by a group, can sometimes generate greater benefits and can also address external impacts of the fishery. I discuss potential failures of individual quotas and how these problems were addressed by CRBFM institutions. I then focus on the role of CRBFM in addressing environmental and social impacts external to the group of fishers, such as bycatch, habitat impacts, and spatial conflicts. The review suggests that CRBFM can effectively address both intrafishery and external impacts, provided there is sufficient incentive to do so, including maintaining access to preferred markets or the threat of further regulation. However, CRBFM can create moral hazard and adverse selection problems, and successful CRBFM institutions generally have homogeneous membership with well-aligned interests and/or formal contracts with monitoring and enforcement provisions.

Considering Economic Efficiency in Ecosystem-Based Management: The Case of Horseshoe Crabs in Delaware Bay

The welfare gains from incorporating ecosystem considerations into fisheries management are unclear and can vary widely between systems. Additionally, welfare gains depend on how ecosystem considerations are adopted. This paper uses an empirically parameterized bioeconomic model to explore the welfare implications of two definitions of ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM). We first define EBFM as a fishery management plan that maximizes the net present value of ecosystem services. We then explore an alternative definition that adds ecosystem considerations to a fishery managed with regulated open access. Our biological model reflects horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay, which are harvested in a commercial fishery and are ecologically linked to migrating shorebirds populations, e.g. the endangered red knot. We find that introducing ecosystem considerations to a regulated open access fishery generates welfare gains on par with gains from addressing the commons problem even when fishery rents are completely dissipated. Additionally, solving the commons problem within an EBFM approach can provide substantial welfare gains above those from solving the commons problem in a single-species management framework.

Fishermen, markets, and population diversity

Fishing impacts biodiversity on multiple levels, potentially resulting in unintended feedbacks to the economic performance of the fishery over time. For example, targeting observable traits within a population can impact genetic diversity and targeting valuable species can impact biodiversity at the ecosystem level. The bioeconomic literature, however, has given little attention to the effect of fishing on population diversity, even though population diversity contributes to ecosystem services and estimates of population extinction rates are three orders of magnitude higher than species extinction rates. Here we develop a stochastic bioeconomic model that links the harvest of multiple salmon populations in a single commercial fishery to the trajectory of population diversity in a salmon stock complex. We parameterize our model with biological and economic data from the Copper River Chinook salmon fishery. We show that markets can incentivize the degradation of population diversity, reducing infra-marginal fishery rents, and increasing variability in economic returns. We also show that second-best management can conserve population diversity and improve welfare. Furthermore, depending on fishermen׳s time preferences, this management strategy is potentially self-financing.

Valuing Ecosystem Services with Fishery Rents: A Lumped-Parameter Approach to Hypoxia in the Neuse River Estuary

Valuing ecosystem services with microeconomic underpinnings presents challenges because these services typically constitute nonmarket values and contribute to human welfare indirectly through a series of ecological pathways that are dynamic, nonlinear, and difficult to quantify and link to appropriate economic spatial and temporal scales. This paper develops and demonstrates a method to value a portion of ecosystem services when a commercial fishery is dependent on the quality of estuarine habitat. Using a lumped-parameter, dynamic open access bioeconomic model that is spatially explicit and includes predator-prey interactions, this paper quantifies part of the value of improved ecosystem function in the Neuse River Estuary when nutrient pollution is reduced. Specifically, it traces the effects of nitrogen loading on the North Carolina commercial blue crab fishery by modeling the response of primary production and the subsequent impact on hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen). Hypoxia, in turn, affects blue crabs and their preferred prey. The discounted present value fishery rent increase from a 30% reduction in nitrogen loadings in the Neuse is $2.56 million, though this welfare estimate is fairly sensitive to some parameter values. Surprisingly, this number is not sensitive to initial conditions.

Valuing Ecosystem Services with Fishery Rents: A Lumped-Parameter Approach to Hypoxia in the Neuse River Estuary

Valuing ecosystem services with microeconomic underpinnings presents challenges because these services typically constitute nonmarket values and contribute to human welfare indirectly through a series of ecological pathways that are dynamic, nonlinear, and difficult to quantify and link to appropriate economic spatial and temporal scales. This paper develops and demonstrates a method to value a portion of ecosystem services when a commercial fishery is dependent on the quality of estuarine habitat. Using a lumped-parameter, dynamic open access bioeconomic model that is spatially explicit and includes predator-prey interactions, this paper quantifies part of the value of improved ecosystem function in the Neuse River Estuary when nutrient pollution is reduced. Specifically, it traces the effects of nitrogen loading on the North Carolina commercial blue crab fishery by modeling the response of primary production and the subsequent impact on hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen). Hypoxia, in turn, affects blue crabs and their preferred prey. The discounted present value fishery rent increase from a 30% reduction in nitrogen loadings in the Neuse is $2.56 million, though this welfare estimate is fairly sensitive to some parameter values. Surprisingly, this number is not sensitive to initial conditions.

Protected areas in fisheries: a two‐patch, two‐species model*

The use of marine protected areas as a fishery management tool has been suggested as a hedge against management failures and variation in harvests. A stochastic bioeconomic model of a hypothetical predator–prey fishery is used to test the performance of protected areas in a fishery with heterogenous environments. Protected areas are analysed under density‐dependent and sink‐source dispersal relationships between the subpopulations that occur within the fishery. Differing management structures governing resource extraction are analysed. The focus of the study is placed on the biological and management characteristics that yield benefits to both fishers and society. It is shown that the establishment of a protected area improves fishery rent and lowers harvest variation. This result is sensitive to both current management controls and the correlation between species and patches.

Generating Enhanced Fishery Rents by Internalizing Product Quality Characteristics

This paper demonstrates howadditional rents are generated in a fisherycharacterized by intraseasonal variation infish characteristics, including size,condition, and composition. Based on anexpanded conceptual model of the optimalharvest rule, fish characteristics affect preand post harvest production yields and outputprices. A dynamic empirical model, which uses asystem of quality characteristics and anhedonic equation, illustrates the complexrelationships and management choices associatedwith internalizing seafood qualitycharacteristics in a hake fishery. The modelretains the regulated open access managementsystem, but controls intertemporal andintersectoral quotas, production portfolios,and total allowable catch. Results demonstratethat including revenue-side effects frominternalizing fish quality can generatesignificantly greater rents and reduce therelative benefits of increased productionyields. If excluded, bioeconomic models canunderestimate the level of regulatory rentdissipation and overemphasize managementobjectives such as full utilization, whichcould misdirect processing decisions and resultin a suboptimal resource management plan.Implications for data collection,multidisciplinary analysis, and improvements inmarine resource management are discussed.

Instrument choice in a fishery

This paper considers the choice of regulatory instruments in a fishery. Fishing captains, consumers, and input suppliers each attempt to influence the regulator's choice of instruments. The regulator chooses among instruments such as input restrictions, entry restrictions, or individual transferable quotas (ITQs). Regulatory instruments that result in zero fishery rents can only occur if the regulator places an extraordinary weight on the welfare of input suppliers relative to fishing captains and consumers. Indeed, heterogeneity of fishing captains is neither necessary nor sufficient to obtain regulations that fail to generate fishery rents.

The Icelandic debate on the case for a fishing fee: a non-technical introduction

Research by J.D. Sachs and A.M. Warner, indicates that resource-rich countries are less successful in terms of economic growth than are resource-poor countries. The question of what measures Icelanders need to take to prevent their fishery wealth from limiting economic growth is posed. The main body of the essay discusses arguments for a fishing fee. The principal arguments for a fishing fee are listed. One type of argument concerns flexibility, with a view to possibly introducing other forms of management or altering the distribution of profit in the future. Another type of argument concerns equity and fairness, contending that having a fishing fee makes it easier to ensure that the entire nation enjoys the benefit of the resource. A third type of argument is connected to risk-management, maintaining that, if properly arranged, a fishing fee would make it possible to offer vessel operators an indirect insurance policy which otherwise would not be available to them. The fourth type of argument concerns counter-cyclical policy and the problem of co-habitation of the fishery industry and other export industries and refers to the possibility of wage earners and/or taxpayers being forced (or tempted) to apply general policy instruments to secure a portion of the fishery rent. The general measures available to obtain a piece of the fishery rent share a common failing: their use unavoidably increases costs for other sectors of industry and thus limits possibilities for growth in those sectors and links their performance to fisheries performance. Then there are arguments for neutrality, based on the idea that the so-called resource rent taxes should not affect the use of the factors of production. Finally, there are economic growth arguments, which can be linked to theories of rent-seeking and Dutch disease.

The Icelandic Debate on the Case For a Fishing Fee: A Non-Technical Introduction

Research by J.D. Sachs and A.M. Warner, indicates that resource-rich countries are less successful in terms of economic growth than are resource-poor countries. The question of what measures Icelanders need to take to prevent their fishery wealth from limiting economic growth is posed. The main body of the essay discusses arguments for a fishing fee. The principal arguments for a fishing fee are listed. One type of argument concerns flexibility, with a view to possibly introducing other forms of management or altering the distribution of profit in the future. Another type of argument concerns equity and fairness, contending that having a fishing fee makes it easier to ensure that the entire nation enjoys the benefit of the resource. A third type of argument is connected to risk-management, maintaining that, if properly arranged, a fishing fee would make it possible to offer vessel operators an indirect insurance policy which otherwise would not be available to them. The fourth type of argument concerns counter-cyclical policy and the problem of co-habitation of the fishery industry and other export industries. and refers to the possibility of wage earners and/or taxpayers being forced (or tempted) to apply general policy instruments to secure a portion of the fishery rent. The general measures available to obtain a piece of the fishery rent share a common failing: their use unavoidably increases costs for other sectors of industry and thus limits possibilities for growth in those sectors and links their performance to fisheries performance. Then there are arguments for neutrality, based on the idea that so-called resource rent taxes should not affect the use of the factors of production. And finally there are economic growth arguments, which can be linked to theories of rent-seeking and Dutch disease.

Maximizing Resource Rent From the Western and Central Pacific Tuna Fisheries

Rent generated by the tuna fisheries occurring in the waters of Pacific Islands Nations is estimated for various levels and combinations of purse-seine, pole-and-line, frozen tuna longline, and fresh tuna longline fishing effort, using a multi-species, multi-fleet bioeconomic model. The underlying population model integrates available information on the population dynamics of skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye, and Southern albacore tunas in the Pacific Ocean. The economic model utilizes the most recent data on fishing effort costs for the purse seine, pole-and-line, and longline fleets operating in the western and central Pacific Ocean, along with recent estimates of prices by species, method of capture and market, and estimates of demand elasticities. The results of the model indicate that fishery rent could be increased substantially above the current level by decreasing the size of all fleets, with the possible exception of the tuna longline fleet. The results also suggest that the countries of the region co...

Why Fishing Fleets Tend to be "Too Big"

The aim of fisheries management is to avoid over-investment in fleet capacity and over-exploitation of economically exploitable fish stocks. In this paper a model is developed where a (big) share of rents created by control accrues to boat owners while costs are covered by the general public, which also gets a (small) share of the rent. The distribution of rent is governed by administrative rule which opens the possibility of profitable rent seeking. Cost of control is assumed to increase as rent per boat increases. Control outlays are assumed to be determined so as to maximize gains to the general public. It is shown that the optimal size of the fishing fleet exceeds the size that maximizes fishery rent. It is also shown that the higher the share that accrues to the general public, the closer the optimal fleet size is to the rent-maximizing fleet size.

Bio-economic modelling of a fishery under individual transferable quota management: A case study of the fishery for blacklip abalone Haliotis rubra in the Western Zone of Victoria (Australia)

The present management of the abalone fishery in the Western Zone of Victoria (Australia) includes a total allowable catch (TAC) of 280 t (live weight) divided equally amongst 14 divers, whose entitlements to engage in the fishery are able to be traded. Five of the divers have gained their entitlements through purchase, while the others are from the original group whose entitlements were obtained without cost. Management also includes a legal minimum length of 120 mm maximum shell length. This analysis examines the likely long-term effect from changing the TAC, number of divers and minimum size on the stock, fishery rents and the sharing of rents. The outputs include estimates of yield, catch rates, mean individual weights, exploited density, population fecundity, and fishery rents. The latter are sub-divided in order to examine the sharing between the divers, State and Federal governments, and the entities financing the purchase of licence entitlements. The validity of the outputs is examined by comparing estimates with independent observations of the stock and the fishery.