Thalassorama: ITQs in the Australian South East Fishery

Environmental Economics and Policy,

THE GODFATHER DOCTRINE: A FOREIGN POLICY PARABLE, J.C. Hulsman and A.W. Mitchell, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2009, 85 pages. ISBN 978-0-691-14147-3

The Godfather Doctrine is an expanded version of an essay published in The National Interest, a US popular journal largely focused on foreign policy issues. The book version is short and sweet, consisting of an introduction, the original article itself (with some modifications) and an epilogue outlining the responses to the original article and extending the analysis beyond its original Middle East focus. While 85 pages long, the book itself is small in size, and is easily read within an hour. The authors are both international relations and foreign policy consultants ...

Capacity Analysis and Fisheries Policy: Theory versus Practice

Capacity analysis, capacity policy, data envelopment analysis, bioeconomic models, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q22, Q28, D24,

SEPARATING RESOURCE RENTS FROM INTRA-MARGINAL RENTS IN FISHERIES' ECONOMIC SURVEY DATA

Economic surveys of fisheries are undertaken in several countries as a means of assessing the economic performance of their fisheries. The level of economic profits accruing in the fishery can be estimated from the average economic profits of the boats surveyed. Economic profits consist of two components—resource rent and intra-marginal rent. From a fisheries management perspective, the key indicator of performance is the level of resource rent being generated in the fishery. Consequently, these different components need to be separated out. In this paper, a means of separating out the rent components is identified for a heterogeneous fishery. This is applied to the multi-purpose fleet operating in the English Channel. The paper demonstrates that failing to separate out these two components may result in a misrepresentation of the economic performance of the fishery.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Implicit discount rates and fisheries management: is there a relationship?

Fishers are faced with multiple risks, including unpredictability of future catch rates, prices and costs. While the latter are largely beyond the control of fisheries managers, effective fisheries management should reduce uncertainty about future catches. Different management instruments are likely to have different impacts on the risk perception of fishers, and this should manifest itself in their implicit discount rate. Assuming licence and quota values represent the net present value of the flow of expected future profits, then a proxy for the implicit discount rate of vessels in a fishery can be derived by the ratio of the average level of profits to the average licence/quota value. From this, an indication of the risk perception can be derived, assuming higher discount rates reflect higher levels of systematic risk. In this paper, we apply the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) to determine the risk premium implicit in the discount rates for a range of Australian fisheries, and compare this with the set of management instruments in place. We test the assumption that rights based management instruments lower perceptions of risk in fisheries. We find little evidence to support this assumption, although the analysis was based on only limited data.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: RECENT UNITED STATES AND AUSTRALIAN DEVELOPMENTS

Agricultural development in both the United States and Australia has led to suboptimal levels of environmental degradation. While both countries face similar forms of agricultural environmental degradation, the different resource endowment and population distributions have resulted in a different incidence of the costs of these problems. Increasing demand for environmental services and better information on off-site damages have led to increasing demand for reform of agricultural, rural development, and environmental programs to eliminate biases against practices viewed as more environmentally compatible.Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy,

A REVIEW OF APPLICATIONS OF MULTIPLE - CRITERIA DECISION-MAKING TECHNIQUES TO FISHERIES

Management of public resources, such as fisheries, is a complex task. Society, in general, has a number of goals that it hopes to achieve from the use of public resources. These include conservation, economic, and social objectives. However, these objectives often conflict, due to the varying opinions of the many stakeholders. It would appear that the techniques available in the field of multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) are well suited to the analysis and determination of fisheries management regimes. However, to date, relatively few publications exist using such MCDM methods compared to other applicational fields, such as forestry, agriculture, and finance. This paper reviews MCDM applied to fishery management by providing an overview of the research published to date. Conclusions are drawn regarding the success and applicability of these techniques to analyzing fisheries management problems.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Net economic impacts of achieving maximum economic yield in fisheries

Improving the economic performance of fisheries is becoming increasingly important in fisheries management, and in some cases, maximum economic yield (MEY) is set as a key management target. However, associated with MEY is a level of fishing activity that is lower than would otherwise occur, even in fisheries managed to achieve the maximum sustainable yield. This will result in losses in economic activity elsewhere in the economy, potentially resulting in a net loss to society in the short to medium term. In this paper, an input-output framework is used to estimate the net economic impact of achieving MEY in Australian fisheries. While incomes are reduced in other sectors of the economy, the net impact of achieving MEY in fisheries is dependent on how total catches are likely to change relative to their levels under current management. It is argued that, at least in most Australian fisheries, achieving MEY will result in a net economic benefit to society. Local communities are likely to be included among the set of main beneficiaries, with potential losses being incurred elsewhere in the economy. Sectors that potentially lose as a result of the transition to MEY previously benefited from overcapitalisation in fisheries, and hence higher incomes in these sectors were an artefact of the market failure in fisheries.maximum economic yield, fisheries management, net economic impact, input-output analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Output Substitution in Multi-Species Trawl Fisheries: Implications for Quota Setting

In most multi-species fisheries managed through output controls, total allowable catches (TACs) are set primarily on the basis of biological considerations, usually on a species by species basis. An implicit assumption of management is that fishers are able to adjust their product mix in line with these quotas. If this is not the case, then over-quota catch occurs, leading to either illegal landings or discards. In either case, the effectiveness of the TAC in conserving the resource is reduced. In this paper we show that in the case of multi-species fisheries that exhibit jointness in production, setting TACs on an individual species’ basis is inappropriate. In particular, we quantify technical interactions through the estimation of a multi-output distance function for the UK North Sea beam and otter trawl fisheries, and find that in most cases, the potential of substitutability between the main and alternative species is relatively small. We argue that failure to quantify and integrate these technical interactions in the construction of management instruments for fisheries regulation, may result in increased discarding, illegal fishing and potentially lower than expected future yields.Multi-output fishery, Multi-output distance function, Elasticities of substitution, Efficiency

Reducing Undesirable Environmental Impacts in the Marine Environment: A Review of Market-Based Incentive Management Measures

Using the example of commercial fishing, this paper explores the potential of incentive based management measures as a means of reducing the undesirable impacts of industries operating within the marine environment. Despite having been successfully applied for similar purposes in the management of terrestrial environments, and their potential to achieve environmental gains in an economically efficient manner, examples of incentive based management mechanisms are still relatively limited in the marine context. We assess the potential of a number of alternative market based management measures by reviewing and considering the successes and limitations of previous applications and how these would translate in the case of commercial fishing. Several fishing methods and conservation values are considered and the circumstances in which incentive measures may be most applicable are identified. Where appropriate, and by either replacing or (more likely) complimenting existing management arrangements, incentive based measures have the potential to improve upon the performance of existing measures. This has a number of implications. From the environmental perspective they should allow the expected level of undesirable impact to be reduced. They can also reduce the costs imposed upon the industry by letting them develop the solutions. Further, in the increasingly relevant case of MPAs the potential costs to Government may also be significantly reduced if increasing environmental performance makes it possible for certain industry members to continue operating, reducing the necessity of often costly structural adjustment programs.Environmental Economics and Policy,