Estimating Linkages between Redfish and Cold Water Coral on the Norwegian Coast

The importance of essential fish habitat in supporting commercial fisheries has received increasing attention in recent years. Bottom trawling is known to cause particularly destructive damage to habitat that is effectively non-renewable, such as cold water corals. This paper applies the production function approach to estimate the link between cold water corals and redfish in Norway. Both the carrying capacity and growth rate of redfish are found to be functions of cold water coral habitat and thus cold water corals can be considered an essential fish habitat. The paper also estimates a facultative relationship between cold water coral and redfish stocks. The essential habitat model shows the best fit to the data. Comparative statics of an essential habitat indicate an approximate annual loss in harvest of between 11 and 29% within the bounds of coral decline estimated by scientists. In terms of policy, our results indicate that essential fish habitat protection should be considered when managing commercially important species.Cold water coral, redfish, production function, habitat-fishery linkages, essential fish habitat, International Development, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Q22,

Methods for the 2019 New Zealand family violence study- a study on the association between violence exposure, health and well-being

Family violence, which includes child abuse, intimate partner violence and elder abuse, is a problem of national and global significance. Robust evidence about the scale and consequences of the problem is needed to inform policy and practice, including information on high-risk groups, and risk and protective factors. In this article, the methods utilised for collecting data for NZ’s 2019 Family Violence Survey are described, along with a summary of the characteristics of the population-based sample obtained. The 2019 NZ Family Violence Survey will provide prevalence estimates of violence exposure for women and men across a wide range of types of violence across the lifespan. This article provides a basis for understanding who was included in the study sample, and for enabling understanding and interpretation of future study findings

An International View on “Correcting the Whimsies of U.S. Fisheries Policy”

Daniel W. Bromley’s (2015) recent opinion piece in Choices raises some issues which we believe requires a response on behalf of the international fisheries economist profession. Bromley identifies some key problems with the U.S. fisheries policy, and the Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) system in particular, which are not unique to the United States. In fact, the introduction of ITQs has occurred relatively recently in the United States, while other countries such as New Zealand have over time gained institutional experience with some of the issues raised by Bromley. As fisheries economists from New Zealand and Norway, we may be able to offer some insights

Heterogeneous Response to Marine Reserve Formation: A Sorting Model approach

Marine reserves, Locational sorting, Heterogeneous behavior, Survey, Q22, C35,

A Bioeconomic Analysis of Marine Reserves for Paua (Abalone) Management at Stewart Island, New Zealand

Bioeconomic modelling, Marine reserves, Paua (abalone) fisheries, Stochastic recruitment,