SEMINAR: SEFSC Brown-Bag Seminar - Tomorrow Wed Feb. 10th - 10:30am

[Shannon Calay <Shannon.Calay@noaa.gov>]

You are invited to attend the

SOUTHEAST FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTER
BROWN-BAG SEMINAR

Wednesday February 10 at  10:30 am in the AOML 1st Floor Conference Room

Title:  Fisheries management under correlated uncertainty: prices, quantities, and effort quotas.

Speaker: Chris J. Kennedy

Biography:

Chris Kennedy is a PhD student in economics at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, and a Sea Grant fellow in marine resource economics. His research is focused on coastal and marine resource management, with a particular emphasis on how uncertainty and variability in exploited resources affects resource outcomes under different management regimes. Chris’s other research interests include the broad subjects of environmental policy, behavioral economics and finance, and political science. Originally from Rochester, NY, Chris completed his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at Clarkson University in upstate NY.

Abstract

A number of papers have examined the relative efficiency of harvest quotas, landing fees, and effort limits for the implementation of total allowable catch (TAC) targets in a fishery, the majority of which include a treatment of uncertainty regarding the cost of fishing, stock assessments, and/or biological growth. In those papers that consider multiple sources of uncertainty, a common assumption is that the relevant stochastic elements are independently distributed. Here it is argued this restriction is unrealistic. I provide examples of commercially harvested species that are impacted reproductively and behaviorally by the same stochastic element (e.g., temperature), leading to large and correlated variation in biological growth and harvest costs. A general analytical model with stochastic biological growth and harvest costs shows that relaxing the assumption of independently distributed shocks impacts the relative performance of landing fees, harvest quotas, and effort controls, in some cases reversing the otherwise appropriate choice. Perhaps more intriguing is the possibility of a particular form of positive correlation – negative, concurrent shocks to harvest costs and biological growth. None of the mechanisms studied offers a secure way to protect fish stocks under this regime.