annotated bibliography of fisheries economics literature - Office of ...

living marine resources is proposed for the Alaskan groundfish fishery.
Arnason, Ragnar (1989). "Minimum Information Management with the Help
of Catch Quotas." In P.A. Neher et al (eds.) Rights Based
Fishing, p. 215-241.
This paper agues that in most ocean fisheries the data requirements for
the calculation of optimal tax rates, catch quotas, etc. greatly exceed the
capacity of any resource manager. It follows that management systems based on
such approaches are of little practical use. On the other hand, there appear
to exist institutional arrangements that allow the resource manager to take
advantage of the market mechanism to solve the management problem. This paper
addresses this issue. It attempts to specify institutional arrangements of
the fisheries and management procedures that permit optimal management with
minimal use of extraneous information. This is referred to in the paper as
minimum information management schemes (MIMS).
Arnason, Ragnar (1993). "On Catch Discarding in Fisheries." Presented
at the International Conference on Fisheries Economics, Os,
Norway, May 26-28.
This paper finds that the imposition of an ITQ program on a fishery in
which differential market grades exist will lead to increased discarding of
the smaller fish.
Arnason, Ragnar (1993). "The Icelandic Individual Transferable Quota
System: A Descriptive Account." Marine Resource Economics,
8(3):201-218.
This paper provides a brief description of the evolution and current
structure of the individual quota system (IQ) in the Icelandic fisheries.
This particular fisheries management system was introduced at different times
in different fisheries-in the herring fisheries in 1976, in the capelin
fishery in 1980, and the demersal fisheries in 1984. Since 1990 all Icelandic
fisheries have been subject to a uniform system of individual transferable
quotas (ITQs).
The paper discusses the social and economic impetus for the initial
adoption of the ITQ fisheries system in the various fisheries, sketches its
subsequent development and describes the key elements of the current system.
Assessments of the economic impact of the ITQ system are presented in the las
part of the paper. Although a definitive study of this impact is not
available, the various indicators presented generally indicate an improvement,
sometimes substantial one, in the economic efficiency of the fisheries in
question.
Arnason, Ragnar (1994). "On Catch Discarding in Fisheries." Marine
Resource Economics, 9(3):189-207.
This paper examines the economics of catch discarding in fisheries. To
study this issue a simple dynamic fisheries model is constructed. On the
basis of this model, it is demonstrated that in a differentiated fishery
discarding of catch may be socially optimal. The paper goes on to show that
individual firms in a free access, competitive fishery employ the socially
optimal discarding rule. In contrast, the individual transferable quota (ITQ)
fisheries management regime tends to generate an excessive incentive for
discarding catch. The problem, however, does not appear to derive from the
ITQ system as such. Rather, it seems to depend on the imperfect application
of the system to real fisheries. The concept of a discarding function is
defined and it is shown that at least within the framework of the model
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