Enforcement and uncertainty in the management of joint fisheries

This paper seeks to study government’s regulation of fisheries (or other natural resources) in the presence of the following two characteristics: 1) The fishery is shared between different countries, so there is at least one other country also regulating the fishery. 2) There is some level of political risk regarding future decisions in both/all countries, which is recognized both by fishermen and governments. The main question we study is how this political risk should affect the government’s policy. We focus on two aspects of government policy; enforcement levels and political uncertainty in own country. Our main result is that uncertainty about enforcement levels in the other country affects the optimal behaviour for the government in our country. If the optimal enforcement level in our country is a concave function of the enforcement level in the other country, uncertainty about the policy in the other country should reduce the optimal enforcement level in our country, which also implies that it is optimal for our country to remove more uncertainty about our policy than it would otherwise be. Conversely, if the optimal enforcement level in our country is a convex function of the enforcement level in the other country, uncertainty about enforcement in the other country should increase the enforcement level in our country, and it would be optimal to maintain a higher level of uncertainty about our own policy than otherwise

Risiko i norsk oppdrettsnæring – resultater fra en spørreundersøkelse

Fiskeoppdrett er utvilsomt en risikabel bransje. Likevel har det ikke tidligere blitt gjennomført undersøkelser for å finne ut hvordan oppdrettere vurderer risiko, hvilke risikokilder som anses som viktigst og hvordan risikoen håndteres. Slik kunnskap vil være nyttig både for politikere og aktører innen næringen. Dette notatet bygger på statistiske analyser av en spørreundersøkelse gjennomført blant norske fiskeoppdrettere høsten 2005 rundt disse temaene. De viktigste resultatene fra undersøkelsen er: • Oppdrettere vurderer fiskeoppdrett som en risikabel bransje i forhold til andre næringer, og vurderer seg selv som forholdsvis risiko-tolerante i forhold til andre grupper. • Fremtidige laksepriser, markedsadgang og fiskesykdom vurderes som de viktigste risikokildene. • Tradisjonelle bedriftsinterne strategier som kostnadseffektiv produksjon, sykdomsforebygging og god soliditet og likviditet vurderes som de viktigste for å håndtere risiko. Store selskaper har, på grunn av større ressurser, større interesse for mer sofistikerte tiltak som for eksempel risikoreduserende teknologi. • Interessen for et futures-marked for laks er til stede, men begrenset. Mange mener de ikke har kunnskap nok om et slikt marked, mens andre ser på det som en mulighet til å øke profitten heller enn å redusere risikoen. • Konkurranseevnen til norsk oppdrettsindustri oppfattes på de fleste områder som middels eller bedre. Det store unntaket er markedsadgang, hvor situasjonen oppfattes som dårlig. Det er også her oppdretterne ser det største behovet for å bedre situasjonen. • Usikkerhet rundt politiske beslutninger oppfattes generelt som viktig på flere områder, noe som burde ha implikasjoner både for politikere og videre forskning

Regulations, risk, and rent seeking behaviour

This paper seeks to address how political risk influences behaviour, in particular rent seeking behaviour. Such risk is important in many industries, which posts challenges both for policy makers and economic agents. This paper studies how political uncertainty affects rent seeking, and what level of political uncertainty is “optimal” for society. We find that under some conditions, a higher level of political uncertainty might be beneficial to discourage rent seeking. On the other hand, high risk aversion among the agents decreases the optimal level of uncertainty, as risk averse agents suffer a higher loss in utility from a high uncertainty. It is possible to find several areas where this analysis is relevant. For instance, in fisheries, increasing uncertainty about whether or not to implement (or extend) a pay-back scheme will reduce the incentives for the fishermen to overinvest in vessels

Life and work on small-scale farms in Norway: an outlook based on survey results linked to financial data

This paper studies what causes (small-scale) farmers to leave their farms and typically move to urban areas. A data set is constructed by linking survey results with financial data, and the data set is analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques. Our results indicate that, while existence and size of future farm production is important, there is also a difference between farmers who primarily have financial objectives for their farming, and those who have more lifestyle oriented objectives. The latter group is, everything else being equal, more likely to stay on the farm. This could imply that, if preventing migration from rural to urban areas is a policy objective, production support schemes will be effective for some groups, but will be less effective for the group with lifestyle objectives. If this group is to be encouraged to stay on the countryside, policies directed at improving the general living conditions in the local community are likely to be more effective than specific support schemes related to agricultural production.migration, farmer objectives, agricultural policy, structural equation modelling, Agricultural and Food Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Regulations, risk, and rent seeking behaviour

This paper seeks to address how political risk influences behaviour, in particular rent seeking behaviour. Such risk is important in many industries, which posts challenges both for policy makers and economic agents. This paper studies how political uncertainty affects rent seeking, and what level of political uncertainty is “optimal” for society. We find that under some conditions, a higher level of political uncertainty might be beneficial to discourage rent seeking. On the other hand, high risk aversion among the agents decreases the optimal level of uncertainty, as risk averse agents suffer a higher loss in utility from a high uncertainty. It is possible to find several areas where this analysis is relevant. For instance, in fisheries, increasing uncertainty about whether or not to implement (or extend) a pay-back scheme will reduce the incentives for the fishermen to overinvest in vessels

Regulations, risk, and rent seeking behaviour

This paper seeks to address how political risk influences behaviour, in particular rent seeking behaviour. Such risk is important in many industries, which posts challenges both for policy makers and economic agents. This paper studies how political uncertainty affects rent seeking, and what level of political uncertainty is “optimal” for society. We find that under some conditions, a higher level of political uncertainty might be beneficial to discourage rent seeking. On the other hand, high risk aversion among the agents decreases the optimal level of uncertainty, as risk averse agents suffer a higher loss in utility from a high uncertainty. It is possible to find several areas where this analysis is relevant. For instance, in fisheries, increasing uncertainty about whether or not to implement (or extend) a pay-back scheme will reduce the incentives for the fishermen to overinvest in vessels

Regulations, risk, and rent seeking behaviour

This paper seeks to address how political risk influences behaviour, in particular rent seeking behaviour. Such risk is important in many industries, which posts challenges both for policy makers and economic agents. This paper studies how political uncertainty affects rent seeking, and what level of political uncertainty is “optimal” for society. We find that under some conditions, a higher level of political uncertainty might be beneficial to discourage rent seeking. On the other hand, high risk aversion among the agents decreases the optimal level of uncertainty, as risk averse agents suffer a higher loss in utility from a high uncertainty. It is possible to find several areas where this analysis is relevant. For instance, in fisheries, increasing uncertainty about whether or not to implement (or extend) a pay-back scheme will reduce the incentives for the fishermen to overinvest in vessels

Risikoeksponering og risikostyring i havbruk og jordbruk en komparativ studie

Alle næringer er utsatt for risiko. Det er vanlig å anta at de fleste personer, også bedriftsledere og aksjonærer, har risikoaversjon. De foretrekker en sikker inntekt framfor en usikker inntekt med samme forventning. På den andre siden er profitt en belønning for å ta risiko. Dersom en ikke er villig til å ta noe risiko, kan en heller ikke vente å oppnå høy profitt. Formålet med dette notatet er å sammenligne risikoeksponering og risikostyring i havbruk og jordbruk. Vi har sett på to hovedtemaer: 1. Hvilke typer risiko som ulike driftsgreiner innen akvakultur og jordbruk har til felles og hvilke som er spesielle for enkelte næringer og driftsgreiner, herunder «grovt» gradere samt kvantifisere størrelsen/betydningen til ulike typer risiko. 2. Hvilke virkemidler som ulike næringer og driftsgreiner benytter eller kan benytte for å styre risiko, og i hvilken grad det er institusjonelle eller andre forhold ved næringer og driftsgreiner som gjør at potensielt effektive virkemidler ikke blir benyttet. […]publishedVersio

Management of joint resources : regulations, risk and behavior

In this paper, some effects of political uncertainty are reviewed and the results used to evaluate shared natural resources, but in particular fisheries, with the following characteristics: - Regulations exist, but individuals or firms have a choice whether to comply with the rules and regulations or not. - Some level of political uncertainty exists about these rules and regulations, in particular as to if, when and how they might change in the future. In light of previous literature, we look at how the presence of political uncertainty influences agents’ behavior in these situations with regards to investment, compliance and rent seeking efforts, and also how the optimal behavior is affected by a situation with joint management of the resource between two or more countries Whereas more formal analysis is needed, in particular empirical studies, the main result is that political uncertainty will have a negative effect on investment, which in turn will have other negative consequences. This is intuitive. Uncertainty is likely to increase compliance and reduce rent seeking, but these effects are likely to be much less important. Hence, political uncertainty is always likely to be undesirable. In a joint fishery even more so, as each nation here has the opportunity to make the other country carry some of the costs related to the uncertainty with regards to policy

Evaluation of a “Flipped Classroom” Approach in Management Education

In this paper, a “flipped classroom” approach is evaluated using three different datasets. We use student evaluations of the “flipped classroom” in particular, in addition to regular course evaluations and exam results for the past three years in order to allow for statistical comparisons. Overall, the results are quite positive. Among the interesting effects, students report that they prepare better for lectures, are more satisfied with the course overall, and achieve slightly better grades. In particular, fewer students receive very low grades. On the one hand, we argue that our results support more experiments with technology to improve education. On the other hand, we also hope that our analysis could be useful as a reference for evaluating such experiments and new approaches