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Unpublished Paper
Bio-economies of scope and the discard problem in multiple species fisheries
Economics Working Papers (2002–2016)
  • Rajesh Singh, Iowa State University
  • Quinn Weninger, Iowa State University
Document Type
Working Paper
Publication Date
10-21-2008
Working Paper Number
07020
Abstract

This paper considers the problem of multi-species fisheries management when targeting individual species is costly and at-sea discards of fish by fishermen are unobserved by the regulator. Stock conditions, ecosystem interaction, technological specification, and relative prices under which at sea discards are acute are identified. A dynamic model is developed to balance ecological interdependencies among multiple fish species, and scope economies implicit in a costly targeting technology. Three regulatory regimes, species-specific harvest quotas, landing taxes, and revenue quotas, are contrasted against a hypothetical sole owner problem. An optimal plan under all regimes precludes discarding. For both very low and very high levels of targeting costs, first best welfare is close to that achieved through any of the regulatory regimes. In general, however, landing taxes welfare dominate species-specific quota regulation; a revenue quota fares the worst.

File Format
application/pdf
Length
39 pages
Citation Information
Rajesh Singh and Quinn Weninger. "Bio-economies of scope and the discard problem in multiple species fisheries" (2008)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/quinn-weninger/30/