Playing Chicken with Salmon

Wild Atlantic salmon are traditionally harvested from both the sea and spawning rivers during spawning runs. From an economic point of view, the return from sport fishing in rivers is several times higher than marine ‘for meat only’ harvests. This situation calls for a side payment regime where river owners pay marine fishermen not to fish, and where both parties gain. This paper argues that the reason why such side payment regimes are rarely seen, despite the obvious mutual gain, is due to the potential free riding incentives among river owners. Although it is shown that the decision each river owner faces can be described as a game of chicken, taking the stochastic ecology into account may reveal a different payoff structure. It is also demonstrated that the stochastic ecology of salmon, combined with price rigidities in the rivers, may explain the lack of side payment regimes.Atlantic salmon, game of chicken, recreaional vs. commercial fishing, side payment, stochastic ecology, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Productivity Analysis, Q22, Q26, D81,

On the Economics of Biological Invasion: An application to recreational fishing

The paper demonstrates four general mechanisms that may affect economically valuable species when exposed to biological invasion. We distinguish between an ecological level effect and an ecological growth effect. In addition we present an economic quantity effect working through demand. Finally we suggest that there is an economic quality effect that reflects the possibility that invasions affect the harvesting agents directly through new demand-side forces. For example, this may occur because the state of the original species or the ecosystem is altered. We depart from the existing literature by revealing ecological and economic forces that explain why different agents may lack incentives to control invasions. The theoretical model is illustrated by the case where escaped farmed salmon influence wild Atlantic salmon fisheries.Biological invasion; escaped farmed Salmon; recreational fishing; bioeconomic model

Using Conservation Laws to Solve Toda Field Theories

We investigate the question of how the knowledge of sufficiently many local conservation laws for a model can be utilized to solve the model. We show that for models where the conservation laws can be written in one-sided forms, like \barpartial Q_s = 0, the problem can always be reduced to solving a closed system of ordinary differential equations. We investigate the $A_1$, $A_2$, and $B_2$ Toda field theories in considerable detail from this viewpoint. One of our findings is that there is in each case a transformation group intrinsic to the model. This group is built on a specific real form of the Lie algebra used to label the Toda field theory. It is the group of field transformations which leaves the conserved densities invariant.Comment: Latex, 24 page