While the science supporting fisheries management has generally been dominated by the natural sciences, there has been a growing recognition that managing fisheries essentially means managing economic systems. Indeed, over the past seven decades, economic ideas and insights have increasingly come to play a role in fisheries management and policy. As an illustration of this, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has been actively seeking to expand the scope of its scientific expertise beyond natural sciences [another inter-governmental marine science organization which has done this over the same period is the North Pacific Marine Science organization (PICES)]. In particular, the recently created ICES Working Group on Economics set out to review current work and key future needs relating to economic research and management advice on marine capture fisheries. This article presents the results of this review and addresses how economic research can be incorporated into the science of ICES to provide integrated perspectives on fisheries systems that can contribute to the provision of advice in support of policy development and management decision-making for sustainable uses of living marine resources.

We compared hypothetical willingness to accept (WTA) values for Massachusetts saltwater recreational fishing licenses with WTA values obtained in an actual (simulated) marketplace. Using a dichotomous choice contingent valuation approach, our results align with past evidence that found WTA values elicited from hypothetical transactions overstate those derived from an actual marketplace. We also provide the first evidence about the effectiveness of an ex-post certainty adjustment technique in a WTA environment. While the adjustment technique has been found to eliminate hypothetical bias in willingness to pay (WTP) settings, we find that when applied in a WTA setting, the approach mitigates but does not eliminate the overstated hypothetical WTA bias. We provide some theoretical conjecture as to the likely reasons why the certainty adjustment approach failed to remove the hypothetical WTA bias in our study and conclude with some practical policy implications.

In the study, we investigate determinants of individual fishing quota (IFQ) lease price and transfer of permanent share in the General Category Scallop fishery of the Northeastern United States. A unique micro data set on individual IFQ transactions and related vessel-level fishing profit information for the six-year time period, fishing years 2010–2015, was used to estimate models of aggregate IFQ lease markets and individual transactions. We find that IFQ lease price is affected by the marginal profit of scallop fishing as well as macro-economic conditions. Results of the analysis also suggest that the price for IFQ asset transfers captures the capitalized profits in the fishery over time. Overall, IFQ market performance is in general agreement with economic theory.

Marine ecosystems evolve under many interconnected and area-specific pressures. To fulfil society's intensifying and diversifying needs while ensuring ecologically sustainable development, more effective marine spatial planning and broader-scope management of marine resources is necessary. Integrated ecological-economic fisheries models (IEEFMs) of marine systems are needed to evaluate impacts and sustainability of potential management actions and understand, and anticipate ecological, economic and social dynamics at a range of scales from local to national and regional. To make these models most effective, it is important to determine how model characteristics and methods of communicating results influence the model implementation, the nature of the advice that can be provided and the impact on decisions taken by managers. This article presents a global review and comparative evaluation of 35 IEEFMs applied to marine fisheries and marine ecosystem resources to identify the characteristics that determine their usefulness, effectiveness and implementation. The focus is on fully integrated models that allow for feedbacks between ecological and human processes although not all the models reviewed achieve that. Modellers must invest more time to make models user friendly and to participate in management fora where models and model results can be explained and discussed. Such involvement is beneficial to all parties, leading to improvement of mo-dels and more effective implementation of advice, but demands substantial resources which must be built into the governance process. It takes time to develop effective processes for using IEEFMs requiring a long-term commitment to integrating multidisciplinary modelling advice into management decision-making.

Climate change is affecting marine ecosystems, fish populations, fisheries, and fishing communities around the world. While climate-related changes in fish productivity and distribution have been widely documented, these effects often have not been incorporated into locally-relevant climate assessments. For Northeast US fishing communities from Maine to Virginia, we have developed port-scale assessments of social-ecological vulnerability to climate change based on species vulnerability assessments and distribution projections, current resource use and dependence, and adaptive capacity. In four communities, we work closely with fishing industry participants and municipal leaders to identify adaptation strategies of local interest and evaluate the potential benefits of implementing these strategies through a set of bioeconomic models. We also map barriers and facilitators associated with specific adaptation …

Marine ecosystems evolve under many interconnected and area-specific pressures. To fulfil society's intensifying and diversifying needs while ensuring ecologically sustainable development, more effective marine spatial planning and broader-scope management of marine resources is necessary. Integrated ecological–economic fisheries models (IEEFMs) of marine systems are needed to evaluate impacts and sustainability of potential management actions and understand, and anticipate ecological, economic and social dynamics at a range of scales from local to national and regional. To make these models most effective, it is important to determine how model characteristics and methods of communicating results influence the model implementation, the nature of the advice that can be provided and the impact on decisions taken by managers. This article presents a global review and comparative evaluation of 35 IEEFMs applied to marine fisheries and marine ecosystem resources to identify the characteristics that determine their usefulness, effectiveness and implementation. The focus is on fully integrated models that allow for feedbacks between ecological and human processes although not all the models reviewed achieve that. Modellers must invest more time to make models user friendly and to participate in management fora where models and model results can be explained and discussed. Such involvement is beneficial to all parties, leading to improvement of mo-dels and more effective implementation of advice, but demands substantial resources which must be built into the governance process. It takes time to develop effective processes for using IEEFMs requiring a long-term commitment to integrating multidisciplinary modelling advice into management decision-making.

Effort rights-based fisheries management (RBM) is less widely used than catch rights, whether for groups or individuals. Because RBM on catch or effort necessarily requires a total allowable catch (TAC) or total allowable effort (TAE), RBM is discussed in conjunction with issues in assessing fish populations and providing TACs or TAEs. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages, and there are trade-offs between the two approaches. In a narrow economic sense, catch rights are superior because of the type of incentives created, but once the costs of research to improve stock assessments and the associated risks of determining the TAC and costs of monitoring, control, surveillance and enforcement are taken into consideration, the choice between catch or effort RBM becomes more complex and less clear. The results will be case specific. Hybrid systems based on both catch and effort are increasingly employed to manage marine fisheries to capture the advantages of both approaches. In hybrid systems, catch or effort RBM dominates and controls on the other supplements. RBM using either catch or effort by itself addresses only the target species stock externality and not the remaining externalities associated with by-catch and the ecosystem.

In 2011 the National Marine Fisheries Service began a systematic collection of performance indicators for U.S. fisheries managed under catch shares. Catch shares are a fishery management tool that dedicate a secure share of quota allowing individual fishermen, fishing cooperatives, fishing communities, or other entities to harvest a fixed amount of fish. Catch share design varies widely across different programs and regions. Many programs share similar biological, social, and economic management objectives even though these design features are tailored to accommodate particular fishery characteristics. This paper evaluates fisheries using standardized indicators to measure the basic economic performance, regardless of catch share program design. Data collected were used to evaluate the economic and distribution effects of U.S. catch share programs. Catch share fishery performance is compared to a baseline period prior to implementation of the catch share program. Overall, the majority of objectives to improve the economic performance of catch share fisheries were achieved. Catch share programs have been effective in reducing fishing capacity. However, catch share programs have had distributional consequences as there are indications that consolidation is occurring in a number of programs. For example, there have been considerable reductions in the number of active vessels and entities holding quota share in the Alaska Halibut and Sablefish and the Mid-Atlantic Surfclam and Ocean Quahog catch share programs. However, it is important to note that the accumulation of ownership share may be less of a concern than consolidation in the use of quota. Thus, to the extent that consolidation is considered a management problem, it may be more effective to consider caps on the use of quota than by imposing more restrictive ownership caps. Published by Elsevier B.V.

By ending the “race to fish” catch share programs may be expected to lead to improved productivity at the fishery level by retiring redundant capital and by allowing fishing firms to become more technically efficient in their harvesting activities by, among other things, changing the composition of inputs and outputs. Yet, there have been relatively few empirical studies of productivity changes in catch share fisheries and no comprehensive treatment of a cross-section of programs using a common measure of productivity change. In this study estimates of multi-factor productivity change for 20 catch share fisheries in the U.S. using a Lowe index are provided. With few exceptions, productivity increased relative to baseline conditions during the first three years of catch share program implementation. For five of six of the most established catch share programs, these initial productivity gains have been maintained or have continued to improve.

After 16 years under a limited access program with effort controls, the New England groundfish fishery transitioned to a catch share management system in 2010. For much of its earlier management history, issues related to fishing capacity were paramount as effort controls were increasingly restrictive to meet biological objectives. As the size of the active fleet declined from over 1000 vessels from 1994 to 2001 to less than 400 vessels in 2012, the management concern shifted to fleet diversity. Fleet diversity has been cast in terms of vessels based on characteristics such as size, gear, and region rather than their share in landings or economic value. Measuring fleet diversity with indices commonly used in the biodiversity literature such as richness, effective diversity based on the Shannon index, and evenness appears appropriate for this context. In this paper these indices were applied to measure changes in diversity of the active New England groundfish fleet from 1996 to 2012. Fleet diversity as measured by the Shannon Index has declined by approximately 35% from 1996 to 2012, but has remained relatively stable since 2007. Forty vessel types were present in all 17 years, which accounted for about 85% of active groundfish vessels and over 90% of total groundfish landings in all years. Even though the fleet size and overall diversity have declined the “core” groundfish fleet remains stable.

A growing number of US fisheries are managed with catch share programs, which allocate exclusive shares of the total allowable catch from a fish stock to individuals, cooperatives, communities, or other entities. All of these catch share programs allow transferability of catch privileges in some form. Information on these transfers, particularly prices, could be valuable to fishery managers and to fishery participants to support management and business decisions and to increase efficiency of the catch share market itself. This article documents the availability and quality of data on transfers of catch privileges in fourteen US catch share programs. These catch share programs include several individual fishing quota (IFQ) programs and a number of programs that allocate catch privileges to self-organized cooperatives. Price information on catch share transfers is found to be limited or unavailable in most US catch share programs. Recommendations are made on how to improve the design of catch share programs and associated data collection systems to facilitate effective catch share markets, collection of catch share market data, and better use of information from catch share markets.