An experimental examination of fisheries with concurrent common pool and individual quota management
Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
4-1-2014
Abstract
An emerging trend in fisheries management allows different groups of harvesters pursuing the same stock, even under the same management plan, to manage their effort using different rules, so long as each group remains within its "catch share" portion of mortality. Thus harvesters in a single fishery, with a single total allowable catch, concurrently must respond strategically to the behavior not only of those being managed as they are but also of those facing incentives of different management. In a novel quasi-continuous time experimental environment with a contemporaneous price externality, we explore the effort timing behavior of harvesters managed under common pool (CP) management with that of subjects managed with individual quotas (IQ). Consistent with Nash equilibrium, CP-managed subjects race-to-fish, exerting high levels of effort to secure landings but selling at correspondingly low prices. IQ-managed subjects in the same fishery hold effort back until the CP fishery closes, and use their quota over the balance of the season at a lower weekly landings level, receiving higher prices. After experiencing both management systems, subjects choose to be in a group with IQ by a 3:1 margin. © 2014 Western Economic Association International.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Economic Inquiry
Volume
52
Issue
2
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Anderson, Christopher M., and Hirotsugu Uchida. "An experimental examination of fisheries with concurrent common pool and individual quota management." Economic Inquiry 52, 2 (2014). doi: 10.1111/ecin.12057.