http://hdl.handle.net/1957/30466 Thu, 20 Jun 2013 07:09:42 GMT 2013-06-20T07:09:42Z http://hdl.handle.net/1957/31046 Comment on “Landing Fees versus Harvest Quotas with Uncertain Fish Stocks.” Jaeger, William K. In “Landing fees vs. harvest quotas with uncertain fish stocks”, Martin Weitzman maintains that the conventional view among both fisheries economists and fisheries managers is that “prices” are inferior to “quantities” as instruments for regulating the fishing industry. Weitzman takes the opposite position, appealing to two well-established ideas in economics: 1) his own seminal insight on “prices vs. quantities”(Weitzman 1974), and 2) the “powerful general theme in economics that a ‘price signal’ can compress into a simple reduced form all relevant information for inducing correct decentralized decisions.” His paper is an attempt to capture and formalize his intuition on the subject using a standard dynamic fishery model with a stochastic stock-recruitment relation which introduces uncertainty, and evaluating the performance of both landing fees and harvest quotas in comparison to a hypothetical “perfect-information” optimal solution. The basic model is a well-known type which gives rise to a “bang-bang” optimal escapement target, S*. Weitzman rigorously solves the optimizing fishery manager’s dynamic programming problem for each management regime, and shows that the result for a constant landing fee (corresponding to S*) is identical to the “perfect-information” solution, but that both are superior to the harvest quota. This result is undoubtedly correct for the models being appraised. The basis for this finding is less clear, however, since the assumptions which have given rise to this result are not explicitly identified. Indeed, on closer examination, the source of these striking results appears to be unrelated to “prices vs. quantities” in the classic sense. Furthermore, the theme in economics that a ‘price signal’ can compress information and induce correct decentralized decisions appears to be unrelated since there are no differentiated decentralized decisions to be made in the model. Mon, 01 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/31046 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1957/31045 Landing Fees vs. Harvest Quotas with Uncertain Fish Stock Weitzman, Martin L. The paper analyzes the relative performance of two market-based fisheries management instruments in the presence of a stochastic stock-recruitment relation. Regulators are forced to choose either a fee per fish landed or a quota on the total fish harvest at a time when they are uncertain what will be the stock of fish recruits that will actually materialize during the next fishing period. With such ecological or environmental uncertainty being the predominant random variable in the fishery, some striking regulatory conclusions emerge, which go strongly against conventional wisdom. A revised version of this paper was published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Volume 43, Issue 2, March 2002, Pages 325–338 Mon, 01 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/31045 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1957/31042 Comments on M.L. Weitzman: Landing Fees vs. Harvest Quotas with Uncertain Fish Stocks Arnason, Ragnar Weitzman's paper is useful because it provides the fisheries economics profession with a reason to re-examine certain elements of the currently accepted fisheries management theory. As a result, this contribution may lead to a more solid theoretical foundation for fisheries management. This, of course, is the way any science is supposed to proceed. Theories should be forwarded, challenges made and examined and theories modified or abandoned as necessary. This paper is useful as a part of this process. Having said this I should add that I don’t think the paper, in spite of some interesting points and valuable insights, manages to undermine the current fisheries management theory in any significant way. Mon, 01 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/31042 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1957/30785 The More Things Change...: Oysters, Public Policy, and Species Decline in the Pamlico Sound, 1880-1900 Carter, Kathleen S. This paper is a case study of the interrelationship between public policy and species decline in the oyster industry of Pamlico Sound, North Carolina, in the late 19th century, with some attention paid to the first decade of the 20th century. It examines the nature of the many regulatory shifts that occurred at the hands of the state legislature in the period, and it offers explanation for why these policies were ultimately less than successful at protecting and expanding the commercial viability of oystering. Tensions between smaller, local oystermen and outsiders from the Chesapeake Bay played a role, as did the influence of civic leadership in coastal communities hoping to ride the crest of economic development they hoped oysters would bring to the region. The oystermen themselves, in addition, were invited into the regulatory process rather late in the period and therefore were not inclined to work as partners with the state in efforts to preserve and restore oyster numbers. In large measure, however, the state of North Carolina sealed the fate of the oyster by responding with short-term view in its many regulatory revisions, rather than adopting a long-range mentality that might have resulted in greater stability of the species and of the coastal economy. Mon, 01 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/30785 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z