Mercados Informales y Control Vertical: Comercialización de Pesca Artesanal Perecible

Abstract

This paper offers an in-depth case study analysis about institutional changes occurring since the late 1990s at the Chilean Austral Hake artisanal fishery. This high-value exporting fishery, specialized on selling fresh-chilled products, represents a pioneering example of self-government developments within artisanal fishermen's communities exploiting mobile marine resources in Chile. Despite entry restrictions and global catch quotas, this fishery faced a productivity crisis from the late 1980s up to the second half of the 1990s. As a response to this, fishermen initiated talks with the Government in order to introduce new management rules. After gradual evolution, today there prevails a well-developed system of de facto individual non-transferable quotas subject to a high degree of self-management by fishermen organizations. We discuss industrial organization issues which condition the exchange solutions found at this fishery. In particular, we discuss incentives derived from industrial concentration and buyer power, vertical integration and other strategies of vertical control between transacting parties at this industry; namely, between wholesale marketing brokers, exporters, processors, direct buyers of the catch and fishermen. Contractual issues of relevancy are: the use of informal markets; multi-dimensional contracting; temporal specificity due to product perishability; the use of different instruments for vertical control; and the influence of increasing degrees of industrial concentration as we advance through the wholesale commercialization channel, moving closer to the retailing stages at final export markets.Producción y comercialización de Alimentos; Cadenas de producción; Control y Coordinación Vertical; Pesca Artesanal en Chile; Merluza Austral.