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Can Stochasticity Cause Overcapacity in a Pure Open Access Fishery?

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  • Overcapacity remains a major issue in world fisheries. The specific conditions that give rise to overcapacity in the pure open access fishery remain unclear, however the non‑malleability of capital is widely regarded as a necessary condition for the accumulation of excess harvesting capacity. In the process of fisheries collapse known as Ludwig's ratchet, it has been observed that persistent levels of overcapacity are related to episodes of strong investment which are stimulated by the temporal fluctuation in biomass. We examine the role of such stochasticity, as described by two independent environmental processes, using an adaptation of the traditional Gordon-Schaefer model that includes a Marshallian investment process for fishers who form myopic expectations of the future. The results for a pure open access fishery, in which capital is perfectly non‑malleable, confirm the role played by unexpected positive shocks in the biomass due to favourable recruitment events in generating equilibrium overcapacity in the fishery. Simulations that use a parameterised version of our model further demonstrate a connection between the magnitude of positive shocks in the biomass and the extent of overcapacity. On the other hand, the variability of the steady-state overcapacity is shown to be strongly related to the underlying variation in recruitment. We conclude that the existence of perfectly non‑malleable capital, in itself, is not sufficient to generate overcapacity in the pure open access fishery and that stochasticity plays a key role.
  • Keywords: Models: Shocks and Sustainability, Fisheries Economics, Modeling and Economic Theory
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  • Rust, Steven, S. Yamazaki, and S. Jennings. 2014. Can Stochasticity Cause Overcapacity in a Pure Open Access Fishery? In: Towards ecosystem based management of fisheries: what role can economics play?: Proceedings of the Seventeenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, July 7-11, 2014, Brisbane, Australia. Complied by Ann L. Shriver & Melissa Errend. Corvallis, OR: International Institute of Fisheries.
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  • Fisheries Research & Development Corporation, World Wildlife Fund, MG Kailis Group, AquaFish Innovation Lab, NOAA Fisheries, The European Association of Fisheries Economists, Japan International Fisheries Research Society, United Nations University, NORAD
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