Microeconomic Implications of Market-Based Fisheries Regulations in Marine Fisheries Balancing Equity and Compliance with Theoretical Results

Thomas Knight

Date of Award

2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Elliott, Catherine

Keywords

Fishery, ITQ, Landing Fee, Compliance, Equity, Bioeconomics

Area of Concentration

Economics

Abstract

The first chapter of this thesis presents a brief history of fishing and the regulation of that practice. It demonstrates a growing concern for the deteriorating health of the world's fisheries and how this concern has resulted in the investigation of new ways to manage fishery resource extraction. It also discusses the open-access nature of many of the world's fisheries and the movement to close access beginning in the early 1980s. The second chapter of this thesis identifies the major trends in the academic economics literature on fishery management. It discusses the positive and negative effects of both ITQ systems and landing fees. It identifies two major problems with ITQs: a lack of scientific certainty necessary to set a TAC accurately on which quota allocations are based and the inequities arising from quota allocations and consolidation. It is shown that landing fees could solve both of these problems. Landing fees can be adjusted easily with new scientific information, and they do not directly restrict fishing by any actors. However, they do not address such open-access externalities as the derby fishery. The third chapter offers the analytical foundations of fishery economics based on the Gordon-Schaefer Model. Using these analytical tools, the fourth chapter of this thesis determines the effects of ITQs, a lump sum tax, a per unit of effort tax, and a per unit of output tax through mathematical derivations and graphical demonstrations. The fifth chapter of this thesis argues for the need to incorporate a relaxation of the compliance assumption in economic analyses of fishery regulation. In relaxing that assumption, it becomes crucial to identify the motivations for noncompliant behavior. While neoclassical economic theory argues that individual fishers choose not to comply if and only if such behavior is financially profitable, recent findings in behavioral economics have identified a strong influence of fairness over economic decisions. Thus, this thesis concludes with a firm stance that fairness must be incorporated into any applicable economic theory of fishery management. It also proposes a regulatory design that includes both ITQs and landing fee implementation.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS