Stephen Cunningham

Individual transferable quotas in multispecies fisheries

Dale Squires and Samuel F. Herrick, Jr are at the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, P.O. Box 271, La Jolla, California 92038-0271, USA. Harry Campbell is at the University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia. Stephen Cunningham and Sean Pascoe are at the University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK. Christopher Dewees is at the University of California, Davis, Davis USA. R. Quentin Grafton is at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa Canada. James Kirkley is at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester, VA, USA. Sean Pascoe is also at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Canberra, Australia. Kjell Salvanes is at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen, Norway. Bruce Shallard can be contacted at Bruce Shallard and Associates, New Zealand. Bruce Turris is at the Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Vancouver, Canada. Niels Vestergaard is at the Danish Institute for Fisheries Economics Research, Esbjerg, Denmark.

Wealth-Based Fisheries Management: Using Fisheries Wealth to Orchestrate Sound Fisheries Policy in Practice

Abstract The importance of resource rent in fisheries has long been acknowledged. By generating such rents, economically efficient management systems increase value added and the sectors contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) and growth. However, despite the successful adoption of such systems in some countries around the world, economics continues to have relatively little influence on fisheries policy. This lack of influence is particularly noticeable in developing countries, precisely where the contribution that effectively managed fish resources might make to the GDP is most urgently needed. The key requirement to increase the adoption of economically rational fisheries management is to convince policymakers to focus explicitly on the wealth-generating potential of fish resources. Such a focus provides a general policy framework within which other approaches, such as rights-based, incentive-based, and ecosystem-based, may be nested. This approach is likely to prove more effective in influencing policy, especially in situations where rights-based systems either will not work or are politically unacceptable. JEL Classification Codes: Q22, Q28

When is overfishing underfishing

The term “overfishing” is being used with increasing frequency to designate an undesirable level of fisheries exploitation. All too often, however, the term is taken as being self-evident. This article demonstrates that many definitions of overfishing are possible, depending essentially on what objective is being pursued for the fishery. Various possible biological and economic objectives are considered, both in a static and dynamic model of the fishery. Consideration is given to the best utilization of the fish stock from the viewpoint of the individual fishermen as well as that of society. It is shown that overfishing by one definition may be underfishing by another, and it is concluded therefore that anyone using the term overfishing ought, as a matter of course, to define it.