Abstract:
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.
Description:
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
