To bid or not to bid: An investigation into economic incentives underling auction participation

This dissertation investigates the individual characteristics correlated with auction participation decisions using data from two commercial fishing license buybacks. I use the joint empirical analysis of stated and revealed preferences, with two major findings emerging. First, the results of my analysis suggest that individuals with relatively low willingness to accept values and low engagement in the fishery faced problems with the participation decision which prevented them from tendering bids in the auction. This has serious policy implications given that the efficiency of reverse auctions relies on buying goods back from individuals who value them the least. The low participation rate suggests that the licenses bought back represent between 47 - 64 percent of the maximum achievable with the same funds under a first best outcome. Second, fishermen are frequently modeled as strict profit maximizers and harvest histories are often assumed to serve as a good proxy for expected future profits in many circumstances. I find evidence against both of these assumptions. Indicators for bequest and enjoyment values are associated with an increased bid equivalent to that of a $6,500 -$20,000 increase in annual profits. Indicators of bequest and enjoyment values are also significantly correlated with the decision of whether to tender a bid at all. Expected future usage patterns are an important consideration in the participation decisions, and the expected usage can differ significantly from past usage patterns. These results suggest that market experience plays an important role in auction participation decisions, and the problems which develop from inexperience should be addressed explicitly through the auction design

What Can I Do? Preservice Elementary Teachers Developing Understandings of Self as Mathematics Teacher and Teaching in Context

In order to prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to enact teaching practices that best support all students in learning mathematics, elementary mathematics teacher education must prepare PSTs to navigate the many social, political, and institutional dynamics in today's classrooms. In this research, I theorized that successful negotiation of these dynamics requires that teachers have an understanding of themselves as mathematics teachers, including an examined vision of their goals of mathematics teaching, the social and political contexts of schooling, and the realities of their school contexts. In this study, I explored how PSTs understood themselves as mathematics teachers and teaching through participation in a seminar designed to support critical examination of themselves as mathematics teachers, particularly as within complex realities of schooling and attention to equity and access. The theoretical perspective of performativity (Butler, 1999) was used to understand and support PST identity work and specifically guided the design of the seminar and the case analysis. Each of the four cases offers a unique perspective on how PSTs understood themselves as mathematics teachers and mathematics teaching and how these understandings shifted. The first of three findings across the cases was that PSTs understood themselves and their teaching differently. Specifically, as articulated in the second finding, they understood teaching for equity differently and in relation to their own self-understandings. The third finding is that PSTs' understandings of themselves as mathematics teachers and mathematics teaching shifted. Thus, understanding PSTs' mathematics teacher identities through a theoretical premise of performativity and supporting PSTs in deconstructing these contexts, expectations, and constraints supported some PSTs in repositioning themselves in relation to dominant discourses that framed their understandings of mathematics teaching and in problematizing mathematics teaching. These findings have implications for mathematics teacher education, offering new tools and specific concrete resources to support mathematics teacher critical self-examination. Findings also suggest the need for PSTs to engage in continued identity work and in facilitated opportunities to work at the intersections of mathematics teaching with issues of race, class, and institutional discourses of testing. Further research on operationalizing a critical pedagogy in mathematics teacher education is also needed

Valuing Ecosystem Services: Oysters, Denitrification, and Nutrient Trading Programs

As part of their strategy to meet total maximum daily load restrictions in the Chesapeake Bay, managers have developed nutrient trading markets to curb nitrogen and phosphorus flows into the estuarine system. Historically, nutrient trading programs have been restricted to credits between point sources or for agricultural mitigation technologies, such as the planting of cover crops. However, the denitrification and nutrient sequestration associated with oyster reefs has recently been a topic of much biological research. We investigate the role that nutrient credits for ecosystem services provided by restored oyster reefs can play in optimally managing oyster reef complexes by developing a coupled bioeconomic model of oyster reef growth and harvest. Our findings suggest that, along with harvest, the regulating services of denitrification and nutrient sequestration lead to positive net benefits in a majority of scenarios analyzed, although local environmental conditions play a prominent role in the ultimate outcomes

Applying portfolio management to implement Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management (EBFM)

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Taylor & Francis for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in North American Journal of Fisheries Management 36 (2016): 652-669, doi:10.1080/02755947.2016.1146180.Portfolio management has been suggested as a tool to help implement ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM). The portfolio approach involves the application of financial portfolio theory to multispecies fishery management to account for species interdependencies, uncertainty, and sustainability constraints. By considering covariance among species, this approach allows economic risks and returns to be calculated across varying combinations of stock sizes. Tradeoffs between expected aggregate returns and portfolio risk can thus be assessed. We develop a procedure for constructing portfolio models to help implement EBFM in the northeastern United States, using harvest data from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Extending the work of Sanchirico et al. (2008), we propose a measure of excessive risk taking, which may be used by managers to monitor signals of non-optimal harvests. In addition, we conduct portfolio assessments of historical commercial fishing performance at different accounting stances: the large marine ecosystem, the New England region, and the community (fishing ports). We show that portfolio analysis could inform management at each level. Results of the study suggest that excessive risk taking is associated with overfishing, and risk management is therefore important for ensuring sustainability.This article was prepared under award numbers NA09OAR4320129 (Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US Department of Commerce and with additional support from the J. Seward Johnson Fund in Support of the WHOI Marine Policy Center.2017-06-0

Asynchronous mathematics PD: design and facilitation format effects on teacher learning

In this paper, we share the design and effects on teacher learning of a set of two-hour online mathematics professional development modules adapted from face-to-face video-based materials. The modules are designed to be used in three facilitation formats: project staff- facilitated, district leader-facilitated, or structured independent. The modules aim to impact teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching linear functions and effective mathematics teaching practices (MTPs; NCTM, 2014). Analysis of teacher learning, as related to evidence of the MTPs in teachers’ written reflections, found teachers demonstrated learning of key MTPs, and in particular, there were not significant differences by facilitation format. Results and implications are discussed.This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), through NSF #1720507

How to Assess the Spatial Representation of Fishery's Revenues? A Method Comparison

Maps of fishing locations are important in assessing fishery exposure to management alternatives and facilitates stakeholder outreach (e.g. the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2, http://www.nefmc.org/library/omnibus-habitat-amendment-2 and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Amendment 16 to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan, https://www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov/regs/2016/September/16msbamend16ea.pdf). Fishing location data is also a primary input into behavioral location choice models. Issues of fishing location accuracy and precision thus affect both a manager’s ability to govern effectively and a researcher’s ability to model welfare changes. Using data from the limited access scallop fishery in the Northeastern US, this study compares revenue maps created by different approaches for the fishing years 2000-2015. Besides the commonly used aggregation approach of logbook data into statistical areas and ten-minutes-square grids, two probability models will be employed. One of the probability models is based on the work of DePiper (2014) and employs statistical representations of logbook point data, while the second approach follows the approach of Münch/DePiper/Demarest (2017) and incorporates a kernel smoother on Vessel Monitoring System track data. This works aims to highlight the differences in the spatial distribution of revenue between the method applied and to discuss the drawbacks of simply aggregating logbook data into standardized grids, which serves as the most common approach to its spatial representation. This research indicates that statistical models can substantially improve the ability to define fishing locations when compared to traditional point aggregation methods

Estimation of Commercial Fishing Trip Costs Using Sea Sampling Data

Accurate cost estimation is crucial in fisheries economic analyses, but is often the least known component of many studies. For the past two decades, a systematic approach to collecting fishing cost data has been employed by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center through the sea sampling program, i.e., onboard observers collecting economic information in addition to bycatch information. However, the selection of trips to be observed is driven by biological concerns rather than cost assessment. The primary driver is the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology which dictates what types of vessels (gear, species, area of operation, etc.) participating in various fisheries should be sampled and at what rate. There are other factors (weather and the condition of the vessel) that may introduce biases in terms of choice of vessels observed within a given time frame. This is compounded by the fact that both the optimal stratification and sampling rates for estimating bycatch discards are different from those for estimating vessel trip costs. We investigate the effects of sampling bias on trip cost model estimations through the estimation of weighted and unweighted least squares models, as well as Heckman Sample Selection Models, using a data set including both the subsample of fishing trips observed in the sea sampling program and unobserved trips. Results indicate that sampling bias is an issue that cannot be ignored, given that the uncorrected estimates have the potential to lead to erroneous conclusions, which in turn may negatively affect management decisions and regulatory outcomes.Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

Fishery Buybacks, Efficiency and Participation

License and vessel buybacks continue to be utilized by fishery managers to achieve reductions in actual and latent fishing effort worldwide. While there is debate about their effectiveness in achieving sustainability, the design of alternative implementing mechanisms has received less attention. When participation is assumed endogenous, the specific features of the mechanism are crucial in shaping incentives, bids and participation. Under costly participation, there is a contrast in how fixed price and reverse auction mechanisms trade off cost effectiveness for participation. We present the rationale for a novel mechanism that buys items offered at the baseline price until either the budget is exhausted or all the items are acquired. With the latter, items are acquired at a premium price until either the budget is exhausted or all the items offered at the high price are bought back. In either case, when the offers exceed the total budget, the winners are determined using a lottery. The mechanism seeks to encourage participation while capping the amount paid per item. The fixed price, reverse auction and two-price scheme with lottery are compared in terms of average cost per item acquired and ex-ante efficiency. We derive the equilibrium strategies for the three mechanisms and use simulations of a model calibrated with data from a buyback of licenses in the Maryland blue crab fishery. If the complexity of the mechanism discourages participation, it is shown that the two-price scheme performs best for most of the distributions of values assumed.Keywords: Fisheries Economics, Management and Development, Fisheries ManagementKeywords: Fisheries Economics, Management and Development, Fisheries Managemen

Economic and Ecosystem Effects of Fishing on the Northeast US Shelf

Modeling tools that can demonstrate possible consequences of strategies designed to operationalize ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) should be able to address tradeoffs over a wide suite of considerations representing the scope of marine management objectives. Coupled ecological-economic modeling, where models for ecological and economic subsystems are linked through their inputs and outputs, allows for quantification of such tradeoffs. Here, we link the harvest output from fishery management scenarios implemented in an end-to-end ecosystem model (Atlantis) to an input–output regional economic model for the Northeast United States to calculate changes in socio-economic indicators, including the consequences of management action for regional sales, wages, and employment. We implement three simple scenarios (maintain, decrease, or increase current fishing effort), and compare model-projected values for systematic and sector-specific indicators. Systematic indicators revealed different ecological and economic outcomes, with large ecological responses and clear tradeoffs among the catch and biomass of species groups. Economic indicators for the region responded similarly to fishery yield; however, changes in total sales did not match those in landed catch. Under increased fishing effort, a lower proportional increase in sales relative to total landed catch arose due to increased yield from lower value species groups. Average fisheries income changed little among scenarios, but was highest when effort was maintained at current levels, likely a reflection of fleet and catch stability. Our results serve to demonstrate that consequences of management may be felt disproportionately among species through the region and across different fisheries sectors. With our coupled modeling approach of passing Atlantis ecosystem model outputs to an input–output economic model, we were able to assess effects of fisheries management across a broader suite of indicators that have relevance for policymakers across multiple objectives

The Impact of Catch Shares on Fishing Income Diversification and Variation in Annual Revenue

Many fishermen diversify their income by fishing in more than one fishery which can significantly reduce year-to-year variation in income. However, opportunities to diversify have become more limited as access to fisheries has become more restricted. The implementation of catch share systems could further reduce diversification if those who remain in a fishery consolidate catch privileges and specialize, and those who exit lose a component of their fishing portfolio. However, catch shares, particularly in the form of IFQs, offer individuals who had not been part of fishery the opportunity to enter by purchasing or leasing quota. Thus the net effect of catch shares on diversification is uncertain. Furthermore, for fishermen that remain in the catch share fishery, the secure privilege to harvest a set share of the TAC may provide opportunities to reduce variation in income offsetting increased risk associated with reduced diversification. Thus it remains an empirical question whether and how catch shares affect diversification and variation in income. We present an empirical study of diversification in 14 catch share fisheries with a diversity of species from different regions of the US, including both IFQs and cooperative-based catch share systems. For each of these fisheries we test whether diversification levels and trends in diversification changed after implementation of IFQs both for fishermen that remained in the catch share system and for those that exited but remained active in other fisheries. We also test whether variation in fishing revenues changed for fishermen in these groups.Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK