Fishery management under multiple uncertainty

Among others who point to environmental variability and managerial uncertainty as causes of fishery collapse, Roughgarden and Smith (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 93 (1996) 5078) argue that three sources of uncertainty are important for fisheries management: variability in fish dynamics, inaccurate stock s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of environmental economics and management 2005-09, Vol.50 (2), p.300-318
Main Authors: Sethi, Gautam, Costello, Christopher, Fisher, Anthony, Hanemann, Michael, Karp, Larry
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biodiversity
Dynamic optimization
Economic models
Environmental economics
Environmental management
Environmental policy
Fisheries management
Fishery economics
Fishery management
Incomplete information
Management science
Markovian process
Markovian processes
Pisces
Profit maximization
Risk
Studies
Uncertainty
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Summary:Among others who point to environmental variability and managerial uncertainty as causes of fishery collapse, Roughgarden and Smith (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 93 (1996) 5078) argue that three sources of uncertainty are important for fisheries management: variability in fish dynamics, inaccurate stock size estimates, and inaccurate implementation of harvest quotas. We develop a bioeconomic model with these three sources of uncertainty, and solve for optimal escapement based on measurements of fish stock in a discrete-time model. Among other results we find: (1) when uncertainties are high, we generally reject the constant-escapement rule advocated in much of the existing literature, (2) inaccurate stock estimation affects policy in a fundamentally different way than the other sources of uncertainty, and (3) the optimal policy leads to significantly higher commercial profits and lower extinction risk than the optimal constant-escapement policy (by 42% and 56%, respectively).
ISSN:0095-0696
1096-0449
DOI:10.1016/j.jeem.2004.11.005