Noel Roy

U.S. Demand for Selected Groundfish Products, 1967–80

The expansion of national fisheries jurisdiction to the two-hundred-mile limit enabled maritime nations to allocate increased shares of the fish catch off their shores to their own fishermen. The Atlantic groundfish catches of Canada and the United States are sold primarily on the American market. A Nerlovian inventory adjustment-price expectations model is estimated for the American demand for groundfish. Income and price elasticities are perverse. The ability of the American market to absorb the increased anticipated catches are therefore limited, and benefits of extended fisheries jurisdiction will be lost unless marketing arrangements are substantially changed.

The Identification of Economic Base Industries, with an Application to the Newfoundland Fishing Industry

The contribution of an industry to GDP is typically measured by its value added. However, casual observation suggests that some industries play a greater role in overall economic activity than this measure indicates. Observations of this kind have in particular been applied to resource industries and have given rise to the concept of the economic base. Unfortunately, empirical and econometric verification of the concept of a base industry has been limited. This paper outlines a theory of base industries, develops a methodology for identifying economic base industries and measuring their impact, and applies this methodology to the fishing industry of Newfoundland. (JEL C32, Q22)

An inshore fishery: A commercially viable industry or an employer of last resort

Abstract Traditional fisheries often coexist tenuously with modern economies. Within Canada, Newfoundland has a heavily subsidized groundfishery. Despite repeated crises and innumerable studies, the commercially unviable fishery continues to support too many fishermen because the industrial society in which the fishery is embedded provides few employment alternatives. Society can “muddle through,”; hoping that demographic or political changes will solve the problem, or can eliminate subsidies, letting fishermen fend for themselves, or systematically reduce the size of the industry. Action must ultimately be taken; governments will not subsidize the industry forever, and continued overfishing can lead to the complete closure of the fishery. This article describes the historical and economic framework of the Newfoundland fishery, the crises it has faced over the past twenty‐five years, and the public debate over its future. Although the details are specific to Newfoundland, a similar story could be told of ...

The cost to government of maintaining a commercially unviable fishery: The case of newfoundland 1981/82 to 1990/91

The commercial fishery for northern cod off Newfoundland has been closed since 1992. Since then, the recreational “food fishery”; has also been closed, as have the fisheries for many additional cod and other groundfish stocks. The Newfoundland fisheries had been commercially unviable for many years before the closures. This article records the federal and provincial governments’ financial outlays (expenditures, transfer payments to individuals, subsidies, net equity purchases, and net loans) on the fishery during the decade following 1981. Special emphasis is placed on the cost of the financial restructuring of the industry in the mid‐1980s, net unemployment insurance payments, and social overhead capital expenditures.

Fishing Behavior and the Length of the Fishing Season

The basic hypothesis of this paper is that the amount of fishing that a fish harvester undertakes during a year is not determined entirely by circumstances which are exogenous to the fisher, such as weather conditions and resource availability, but is also partially a matter of individual choice. The paper develops a behavioral model of fishing from the perspective that the decision to modify the period of time over which fishing takes place is governed by a comparison of the marginal benefits and costs of doing so. The model is tested econometric ally as an error-components model using a 10% longitudinal sample of recipients of seasonal fishermens unemployment insurance benefits in Newfoundland over the period 1971-93. The results suggest that the Canadian unemployment insurance program has reduced the length of the fishing season in Newfoundland by about 8-10 weeks.

The Newfoundland Fishery and Economy Twenty Years after the Northern Cod Moratorium

JEL Codes: Q2, N5, H7

Canadian government financial intervention in a marine fishery: The case of newfoundland, 1972/73–1980/81

Abstract Trade in fish products between Canada and the United States has been the subject of extensive legal activity in the latter country. United States fishing interests have repeatedly attempted to utilize provisions in U.S. law and in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to have countervailing duties imposed on imports of Canadian fish products, the prices of which are alleged to be artificially depressed by Canadian government financial support of the industry. This paper summarizes the state of U.S. and international law on countervailing duties, and surveys recent legal activity on the matter. It then presents hitherto uncollected evidence on government financial support of a major Canadian fishery, the Newfoundland groundfishery. It is found that the total value of expenditures was equal to 31 percent of the value of total fish products in 1980/81. However, subsidies as defined by the U.S. International Trade Administration, in accordance with U.S. law and the GATT, amounted to only ...

Employment Prospects in a Commercially Viable Newfoundland Fishery: An Application of 'An Econometric Model of the Newfoundland Groundfishery'

An econometric model is utilized to simulate the effects of a policy change in which government financial assistance to a major Canadian marine fishery is withdrawn and the industry is placed on a commercially viable basis. Under near-ideal conditions of marketing and harvesting, harvesting employment would fall drastically, from approximately thirty thousand fishermen under the current regime to approximately six thousand. There would be a concomitant fall in seasonal fish plant employment, and a severe fall in those federal transfer payments (e.g., unemployment insurance) which are currently generated by extensive seasonal employment in both harvesting and processing sectors of the fishery. The policy analysis consists of simulations with a prototype econometric model which integrates the demand, processing, and harvesting sectors of the fishery. The essential components of the 1,000-equation model are described.

Multi-product allocation under imperfect raw material supply conditions: the case of fish products

An otherwise conventional model of multi-product supply is applied to circumstances in which the raw material is provided under highly imperfect market conditions. Satisfactory results are obtained from a specification in which the supply allocation is a function of both the price and the quantity of the raw material.

What Do Statistical Demand Curves Show? A Monte Carlo Study of the Effects of Single Equation Estimation of Groundfish Demand Functions

The use of statistical demand curves to estimate price elasticities is examined. Monte Carlo techniques are used to investigate the effects of the choice of regressand on the price elasticity estimate in the context of a two equation overidentificd simultaneous equation model of supply and demand. Both Ordinary Least Squares and Two Stage Least Squares estimators are assessed. We find that under both OLS and 2SLS, using quantity as regressand will result in an estimate of price elasticity which is numerically smaller than when price is used as regressand. Under reasonable conditions, the difference can be substantial. Normally, the difference is greater under OLS than under 2SLS.