Renewable Resource Industry Research Articles

Natural Resource Management Sciences: A New Association of Academic Disciplines

Natural Resource Management Sciences: A New Association of Academic Disciplines

Natural enemies and forest pest management

Forest insect pest management differs from pest management in other renewable-resource industries because of the relative complexity and stability of the forest environment. An important component of this complexity is the rich fauna of natural enemies attacking most forest insect pests. Understanding the relationship between forest insect pests and their natural enemies would permit better insight into the dynamics of pest populations.The active release of natural enemies in inoculative or inundative release strategies is a direct application of biological control to pest management. The conservation of resident natural enemies is an indirect biological control method with great potential. Knowledge of the ecology of natural enemies can be used to modify other forest practices such as reforestation and insecticide use to conserve or enhance the action of natural enemies.

Harvesting of a Transboundary Replenishable Fish Stock: A Noncooperative Game Solution

In this study we use a N-person differential game structure to represent a renewable resource industry in which the decision agents are few in number and noncooperative (as would be the case, for example, in international fishing wars). As an illustration we assume an environment similar to that presented by Levhari and Mirman (1980) to derive a set of tractable strategies. Although there is no guarantee that the stock size would always be positive with human harvesting in the Levhari and Mirman case, our model provides growth dynamics that rule out negative stocks. Explicit solutions of equilibrium game strategies and a steady-state level of stock are derived. Finally, we demonstrate that in situations when stock size enters the production function, combined maximization such as an international treaty is more conservative than individual maximization.

Tests of Alternative Theories of Firm Growth

This study examines the relationships among firm growth, firm size, and firm age for a sample of manufacturing firms between 1976 and 1982. Firm growth is found to decrease with firm age and firm size. These findings are robust to alternative assumptions concerning the effects of sample censoring and the functional form of the growth relationship. The inverse growth-age relationship is consistent with a theory of firm learning proposed by Boyan Jovanovic while the inverse growth-size relationship is inconsistent with a number of theories that assume or imply Gibrat's law. Copyright 1987 by University of Chicago Press.

The Irish Sea Fisheries: Development and Curtailment of a Renewable Resource Industry

Abstract. The volume of the sea fish catch in the Republic of Ireland increased by 16 times in the period 1950‐82. Influences contributing to development included active promotion by a State agency, government funding, fleet expansion, growth in the labor force, establishment of processing, and development of domestic and export markets.Fish landings became more concentrated in the major ports and along the less developed west coast. Fishery expansion is now curtailed by resource problems. These are partly the result of pressures exerted by foreign fleets, now within the context of the European Economic Community (EEC). Internal conflicts have arisen through competition between Irish fishermen for scarcer resources. The major needs in this new phase of the industry are for restructuring of the fleet, exploitation of new stocks, resource conservation, development of mariculture, more advanced processing and marketing, and comprehensive policy formulation.

Decentralized regulation of a common property renewable resource industry with irreversible investment

The effectiveness of output controls for rationalizing a common property renewable resource has been called into question by the theoretical work of J. R. Gould [ Economica, Nov., 383–402 (1972)]. A proper examination of this question requires an intertemporal analysis, one that takes into account that asymmetries between persistent factors of production (“immaleable capital”) and factors that are instantaneously consumed (“labor” or ldharvest effort”). We present here a nonlinear intertemporal model of a renewable resource industry, under conditions of irreversible capital investment, and undertake to analyze its dynamics, both at open access and under centralized optimal management. We then examine the theoretical possibility of decentralized regulation by Pigouvian taxes, and reconsider the proposition of Gould.

The fishery in a fluctuating environment: Coexistence of specialist and generalist fishing vessels in a multipurpose fleet

The fishery is a prime example of a common property renewable resource industry. A second prominent feature is the extreme variability of its environment, both biologic and economic. Traditionally fishing vessels have harvested a single species or aggregation, but now powerful multipurpose vessels have been introduced which switch targets as opportunities arise. These vessels represent an adaptation to the fluctuating environment: they give up efficiency of specialized operation for flexibility under changing conditions. We analyze, from the point of view of economic efficiency, the common property operation of a mixed fleet of generalist and specialist fishing vessels in a fluctuating environment.

Common Property Resources and Factor Allocation

Two recent articles by Professors H. Scott Gordon and Anthony Scott present an interesting analysis of the conditions for economic maximization in a renewable resource industry the primary raw material for which is drawn from the public domain. While their criticism of the concepts which now govern fishery conservation programmes will be generally accepted among the handful of economists dealing with the fishing industry, some aspects of the problem call for additional consideration. In this paper I should like to elaborate and modify the general outlines of the analysis, largely in terms of a specific and important case: the Pacific halibut fishery.As Gordon and Scott point out, the core of the “over-fishing” problem inheres in the fact that the basic resource is incapable of ownership in any meaningful sense. When the demand for a given species exceeds the level at which supplies can be drawn from local waters at relatively constant costs, further exploitation of the fishery gives rise to higher costs at both intensive and extensive margins. The catch per unit of fishing effort will decline in the closer, more populous grounds as stocks are reduced, and greater costs must be incurred in pushing fishing activities to more distant grounds. If the grounds could be and were privately owned, the incremental income resulting from, say, secular growth in demand would, of course, accrue as rent in a purely Ricardian sense. Since they are not, and since there are no substantive barriers to the entry of new vessels, the increasing aggregate returns will simply be dissipated in excess capacity and higher monetary and real costs. If the reduction in stocks, viewed with grave alarm by biologist and legislator alike, now gives rise to restrictions on the catch designed to hold fish populations at some predetermined level or to rebuild them, the increases in price, aggregate returns, and excess capacity will continue. There is obviously no assurance that the final effect on economic output over time relative to total factor inputs is the same, better, or worse than in the absence of such restrictions.