Modern fishing technology and profitability in a second best situation

Abstract

This paper formulates a simple biomass growth model of a fishery. In this model, fish are exploited in a restricted open-access regime where a fixed number of harvesters exploit the fish stock in a myopic profit-maximizing manner. It is demonstrated that more modern fishing technology has a two-sided profitability effect, where the direct, short-run, positive effect is counterbalanced by a negative, long-run, indirect effect that slows population growth. In the steady state, it is shown that more modern technology dissipates the rent under already high exploitation pressure, while the opposite occurs if the fish stock is initially little, or moderately, exploited.Fisheries; technology; rent; second best