Pedro Pintassilgo

Management of the Northern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna: An Application of C-Games

This paper considers the prospects for cooperative multilateral management of the North Atlantic bluefin tuna fisheries in accordance with the United Nations (UN) Agreement on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks signed in December 1995. A three-players characteristic function game (c-game) is used to analyze the cooperative agreements. The analysis focuses on the sharing of total net returns from cooperation. Three sharing rules are calculated; namely, the Nucleolus, the Shapley value, and the Nash bargaining solution. The analysis is based on simulation and optimization results from a multi-gear, age-structured, bioeconomic model developed for the North Atlantic bluefin tuna fisheries, East and West stocks. The results show, as expected, that significant gains can be attained from cooperation. The different sharing rules for the distribution of gains provide different returns to each player. Nonetheless, the basic transfer payments structure is stable. This case study points out some particular situations where these solutions are not enough to guarantee cooperation between all the coastal states.

Coalition Formation in Straddling Stock Fisheries: A Partition Function Approach

In this paper the management of straddling fish stocks is approached through a coalition game in partition function form. A two-stage game is applied, assuming ex ante symmetric players and the classical Gordon-Schaefer bioeconomic model. It is shown that the game is characterized by positive externalities — the merger of coalitions increases the payoffs of players who belong to other coalitions. A key result is that, apart from the case of two players, the grand coalition is not a Nash equilibrium outcome. Furthermore, in the case of three or more players the only Nash equilibrium coalition structure is the one formed by singletons. The results indicate that the prospects of cooperation in straddling stock fisheries are low if players can free ride cooperative agreements. Thus, in order to protect cooperation, under the aegis of regional fishery management organizations, unregulated fishing must be prevented.

‘Tragedy of the Commons’ in the Tourism Accommodation Industry

This paper models the interaction between the tourism accommodation industry and environmental quality – herein considered as a composite common pool resource. Results from the study show that open access generally leads to both economic and environmental overexploitation, that is ‘the tragedy of the commons’. This also affects the overall tourism industry since tourism accommodation and environmental quality perform central roles. This ultimately leads to mass tourism characterized by tourists with low willingness to pay. The results show that, apart from situations where positive externalities on other activities are very significant, or that open access faces binding restrictions (such as land availability), a firms entry should be limited, based on both efficiency and sustainability.

Optimal Management of the Northern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

This paper analyzes the optimal management of the Northern Atlantic bluefin tuna, both eastern and western stocks. The analysis is based on a deterministic multi-gear and age-structured bioeconomic model. In order to assess the importance of the gear structure in this fishery, the model is optimized in two scenarios. In the first, the strategies are restricted to the gear mix of the base year, whereas in the second, the optimal gear mix is estimated. For both scenarios, optimal constant strategies are determined. The corresponding optimal use is then compared with an open-access scenario. Also, optimal non-constant strategies are explored. As expected, the gear structure of the fishery proved to be highly relevant in the optimal payoffs. In particular, the unrestricted strategies yield rents substantially higher than the restricted ones. Also, the optimal management of the bluefin tuna fishery, in both the East and West Atlantic, would imply significant reallocation of the gear shares.

The economic dimension of climate change impacts on tourism The case of Portugal

Climate variables such as temperature and precipitation play a crucial role on tourism flows worldwide. This places tourism at the forefront of the economic sectors to be affected by climate change. In this article, we address the impacts of climate change on the arrivals of inbound tourists to Portugal, a south European country where tourism is a core economic sector. The economic dimension of the impacts, in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and employment, is then assessed. This is achieved by combining a world gravity model of tourism flows with an input–output model. The results show that under standard climate change scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Portugal will experience a significant increase in temperature leading to a decrease of inbound tourism arrivals between 2.5% and 5.2%. This decrease in tourist arrivals is expected to reduce Portuguese GDP between 0.19% and 0.40%.

System Dynamics in Tourism Planning and Development

ABSTRACT System dynamics (SD) is a method that has the ability to capture the dynamic behavior of a complex system over time. The tourism industry, due to the myriad of interactions among its sectors, can be considered as a complex system. Therefore, SD has drawn the attention of tourism researchers over the last two decades. The goal of this study is to assess the application of the SD method in planning and development of the tourism industry. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was performed and a set of 27 papers was selected. The analysis of the papers shows the applicability of the SD method to address a multitude of different problems. Overall, however, it can be concluded that whilst the SD method has shown considerable potential to provide tourism decision-makers and regulators with tools for strategic and operational policy development at many different levels of analysis, the number of applications in this sector is still limited. Therefore, it is recommended that the use of SD modeling in the tourism industry be extended in order to promote a holistic understanding of the complex issues faced by this industry and to assist in the development of more effective policies.

Segmenting visitors based on willingness to pay for recreational benefits: The case of Leiria National Forest

This article uses a criterion-based method to segment visitors in the context of a contingent valuation survey. The National Forest of Leiria, located in central Portugal, is used as case study. Respondents are assigned to segments through a chi-squared automatic interaction detector method according to their willingness to pay for recreational improvements. This method identifies the main socio-economic and behavioural variables that differentiate the segments. The results show that the segment with the largest willingness to pay is formed by visitors who contribute to environmental protection and rate their recreational experience in the forest as very good. Besides these ‘environmentally friendly’ visitors, two other segments show willingness to pay above average: ‘graduates’ and ‘forest neighbours’. The study shows how the rich set of data provided by contingent valuation studies can be used to segment visitors, and therefore to support the planning and management of recreational facilities.

Sustainable Energy Communities: Implementation Study of a Wind Community in Algarve (Portugal)

The objective of this paper is to study the implementation of a wind energy unit to supply the electricity for the consumption of a small local community in the Algarve region and evaluate its financial and economic feasibility. Additionally, the study can contribute to increase the use of renewable energy in electricity production by decentralized systems in Portugal. Thus it will stimulate the creation of local systems of electricity production for own consumption in small urban communities, meeting the concept of Renewable Energy Communities, specifically the Wind Communities.

International fisheries management and recreational benefits: The case of Baltic salmon

ABSTRACT This article studies how accounting for the benefits of recreational fisheries affects the formation and stability of an international fisheries agreement (IFA) on the management of Baltic salmon stocks. The interaction between four countries is modelled through a partition function game, under two scenarios. In the first scenario, countries take their participation decision for the IFA based only on the net present value of profits from commercial fisheries. In the second scenario, the net present value of the recreational benefits from angling is also considered. The results show that accounting for recreational benefits leads to the formation of the grand coalition, whereas only partial cooperation occurs when payoffs are confined to profits from commercial fisheries. JEL Codes: C70, F53, Q22.