2002 World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists

Controlled access management in the northern Gulf of Mexico commercial reef fish fishery has failed to achieve economic and biological objectives; key reef fish species are considered overfished and harvesting regulations have dissipated economic rents. This paper estimates the economic benefits of replacing controlled access with a system of tradable harvest permits. We exploit the economic incentives that are implicit in property rights-based management programs to predict harvesting and marketing practices expected to prevail ex post. Based on these predictions, we estimate the economic benefits that were potentially available in the reef fish fishery during 1993, the year of our data. Results indicate that, eliminating market gluts caused by periodic seasonal closures could have increased revenues by $3.068m. Eliminating per-trip catch limits and redistributing harvest rights to cost efficient vessels could have reduced fleet harvesting costs by $8.547m. Total 1993 benefits, at $11.614m, suggest that property rights-based management is an attractive alternative in the northern Gulf reef fish fishery.



	Paper Title:	Economic Benefits Of Management Reform In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Reef Fish Fishery
	Presenting Author:	Quinn Weninger (Iowa State University)
	Coauthor 1:	James R Waters
	Coauthor 2:
	Coauthor 3:
	Abstract:	Controlled access management in the northern Gulf of Mexico commercial reef fish fishery has failed to achieve economic and biological objectives; key reef fish species are considered overfished and harvesting regulations have dissipated economic rents. This paper estimates the economic benefits of replacing controlled access with a system of tradable harvest permits. We exploit the economic incentives that are implicit in property rights-based management programs to predict harvesting and marketing practices expected to prevail ex post. Based on these predictions, we estimate the economic benefits that were potentially available in the reef fish fishery during 1993, the year of our data. Results indicate that, eliminating market gluts caused by periodic seasonal closures could have increased revenues by $3.068m. Eliminating per-trip catch limits and redistributing harvest rights to cost efficient vessels could have reduced fleet harvesting costs by $8.547m. Total 1993 benefits, at $11.614m, suggest that property rights-based management is an attractive alternative in the northern Gulf reef fish fishery.
	Link to paper:	http://weber.ucsd.edu/~carsonvs/papers/382.pdf

	Session / Day / Time	16F / Thursday / 2:15 - 4:15 pm

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