Effects of Rights-Based Management on Processors' Supply: An Application to the Alaska Pollock Fishery

• Main Author: Fell, Harrison
• Format: Report
• Language: English; unknown
• Published: International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade
• Subjects: Fisheries > Economic aspects > Congresses; Sustainable fisheries > Congresses; alaska pollock; Alaska
• Online Access: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/conference_proceedings_or_journals/2b88qd33b

Economists have generated numerous studies analyzing how a move to rights-based fishery management from open-access management affects fish harvesters' behavior. Conversely, the impacts that such a change in management can have on fish processors has received relatively little attention. This paper presents a simple two-product processor supply model to show that switching to a rights-based managed fishery can be a source of rent generation for the processors by making their supply more responsive to output prices. Using data from the Alaska pollock fishery, a cointegration with structural break analysis is used to provide evidence of a change in the long-run relationship between processors output, product prices, and whole fish deliveries. The empirical application finds that the endogenously determined structural breaks happened near the time this fishery implemented an individual fishing quota. Furthermore, the estimation of the cointegrating vector indicates that the processors of this fishery are significantly more price responsive after the change in management KEYWORDS: Rights-Based Management, Fishery Rationalization, Cointegration, Structural Breaks