Peder Andersen

Commercial fisheries under price uncertainty

Abstract The deterministic models applied in economics of fisheries are extended to comprise price uncertainty and risk aversion among the fishing units. It is proved that in the open-access fishery both the total fishing effort and the number of fishing units are reduced as the variance of the price increases; that the total fishing effort may be smaller in the open-access fishery than in the optimal fishery at a high variance; that only a fixed producer price system can create a first-best optimum, and that a tax on revenue is more efficient than both fishing unit quotas or tax on catch.

ITQs in Denmark and Resource Rent Gains

Abstract In this article, we analyse to what extent the change in the Danish fishery policy from an effort restriction based management system (ERIQ) to a system based on individual transferable quotas (ITQ) has improved the creation of resource rent. Fisheries economic theory shows that ITQ-based fisheries in a perfect world will be efficient and resource rents will be larger than in fisheries regulated by various forms of entry restrictions and effort regulations. The results presented in this article and evidence from the entire Danish fishery support this conclusion. However, the analyses also show that the resource rent in an ITQ-based fishery might not differ very much from the resource rent in a well-managed fishery based on effort restrictions. JEL Classification Codes: Q22, Q28

The extraction of exhaustible resources under demand uncertainty

Abstract The paper analyses the effects of demand uncertainty on the extraction of an exhaustible resource under perfect competition and monopoly with either risk-neutral or risk-averse resource owners. We develop a model which is sufficiently general to encompass previous studies as special cases, and still simple enough to allow an easy interpretation of exactly which factors influence a market for an exhaustible resource under demand uncertainty. The paper provides a reconciliation and generalization of results previously reported in the literature.

Fisheries Economics and Fisheries Management: A Reflective Note in Honor of Rögnvaldur Hannesson

Abstract Professor Rögnvaldur Hannessons influence on the development and history of fisheries economics is unquestionable. Also, he has strongly pointed out the potential gains from a more active use of fisheries economics in fisheries management. In light of this, one may ask if fisheries economists have spent too much time on fundamentals in fisheries economics at the expense of the development of applicable models for fisheries managers? Of course, this question is relevant only IF fisheries economics and fisheries economists have a role to play in fisheries management. JEL Codes: Q22, Q28, C61

Renewable resource management under asymmetric information: the fisheries case

Abstract Asymmetric information between fishermen and the regulator is important within fisheries. The regulator may have less information about stock sizes, prices, costs, effort, productivity and catches than fishermen. With asymmetric information, a strong analytical tool is principal-agent analysis. In this paper, we study asymmetric information about productivity within a principal-agent framework and a tax on fishing effort is considered. It is shown that a second best optimum can be achieved if the effort tax is designed such that low-productivity agents rent is exhausted, while high-productivity agents receive an information rent. The information rent is equivalent to the total incentive cost. The incentive costs arise as we want to reveal the agents type.