APPLICATIONS OF DUAL THEORY IN FISHERIES: A SURVEY

This paper surveys empirical studies that utilize the theory of the firm and dual theory to reveal economic and technological conditions of fish harvesting firms. The dual approach is highly suitable for revealing disaggregated structures in fishing processes that consist of several inputs and outputs. Building on the functional forms of cost, profit, or revenue functions, the dual approach has improved our understanding of technological production conditions based on data at firm level. This is done by addressing a variety of different technological issues for multispecies harvesting firms, such as transformation between species, substitution between fishing inputs, economies of scope and scale, industrial organization, etc. Moreover, the approach has been useful as a means of providing information on public management of resource exploitation by dealing with various regulatory regimes; i.e., input management, output management, and prospects for future regulation. The purpose of this paper is to review theoretical issues and empirical results with respect to fishing gear and regulatory regimes.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Centralised versus Decentralised Enforcement of Fish Quotas

The purpose of this article is to consider under what circumstances it is better to have centralised enforcement of catch quotas and when it is better to leave enforcement to the countries themselves. It is shown for a two-country case that a welfare gain is obtained under centralised enforcement at the federal level. The result depends critically on the difference in the unit cost of enforcement at the federal and the Member State (regional) level. If the Member States have a sufficiently large cost advantage in enforcing quotas, they can be better off under decentralised enforcement. In addition, the result depends on the proportion of foreign fishermen in the domestic fishing zone. The higher the proportion of foreign fishermen in the domestic zone, the better the decentralised enforcement of quotas.Quota enforcement policy, fisheries management, Industrial Organization, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy, Q22, Q28.,

Jointness through fishing days input in a multi-species Fishery

Some multi-species fisheries are characterised by production jointness in the sense that several species are caught through a joint production process (literally in the same haul of the net). Other multi-species fisheries (so called purse seine fisheries) are specialized in the sense that species are targeted individually and by-catch is negligible, but over the fishing season the same boat chooses to target several species with varying intensity which also results in a sort of jointness. Both types of fisheries are typically modelled using standard multi-input multi-output profit function forms (e.g. translog, normalized quadratic). In this paper we argue that jointness in the latter, essentially separable fishery is caused by allocation of fishing days input among harvested species. We developed a structural model of a multi-species fishery where the allocation of fishing days input causes production jointness. We estimate the model for the Norwegian purse seine fishery and find that it is characterised by non-jointness, while estimations for this fishery using the standard multi-input multi-output profit function imply jointness.production jointness, multi-species fisheries, structural modeling

The Economic Community of West African States : fiscal revenue implications of the prospective economic partnership agreement with the European Union

This paper applies a partial equilibrium model to analyze the fiscal revenue implications of the prospective economic partnership agreement between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the European Union. The authors find that, under standard import price and substitution elasticity assumptions, eliminating tariffs on all imports from the European Union would increase ECOWAS'imports from the European Union by 10.5-11.5 percent for selected ECOWAS countries, namely Cape Verde, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal. This increase in imports would be accompanied by a 2.4-5.6 percent decrease in total government revenues, owing mainly to lower fiscal revenues. Tariff revenue losses should represent 1 percent of GDP in Nigeria, 1.7 percent in Ghana, 2 percent in Senegal, and 3.6 percent in Cape Verde. However, the revenue losses may be manageable because of several mitigating factors, in particular the likelihood of product exclusions, the length of the agreement's implementation period, and the scope for reform of exemption regimes. The large country-by-country differences in fiscal revenue loss suggest that domestic tax reforms and fiscal transfers within ECOWAS could be important complements to the agreement's implementation.Free Trade,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy,International Trade and Trade Rules,Trade Law

Cancer incidence in Danish phenoxy herbicide workers, 1947-1993.

A cohort study was undertaken of 2119 workers from Denmark who were potentially exposed to phenoxy herbicides. The workers were from two factories that produced phenoxy herbicides since 1947 and 1951, respectively. They had been employed either in the manufacture of phenoxy herbicide or in the manual service functions. The main product was 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxyacetic acid (MCPA). From 1947 to 1993 the 2119 workers had a slightly lower overall cancer incidence than the Danish population (observed = 204; expected [Exp] = 234.23; standardized incidence ratio [SIR] = 0.87; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.8-1.0). Four soft-tissue sarcoma cases were observed (Exp = 2.47; SIR = 1.62; 95% CI = 0.4-4.1). All four cases occurred among men from Kemisk Vaerk Køge (Exp = 1.68; SIR = 2.38; 95% CI = 0.7-6.1). There were six cases of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (Exp = 5.07; SIR = 1.10; 95% CI = 0.4-2.6) and no significantly elevated risk of other cancers. Based on small numbers, the study suggests an association between the exposure to MCPA and related phenoxy herbicides and the risk of soft-tissue sarcoma. The study does not indicate a risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after exposure to these phenoxy herbicides or a risk of other cancer diseases