Bioeconomic model of spatial fishery management in developing countries

Fishers in developing countries do not have the resources to acquire advanced technologies to exploit offshore fish stocks. As a result, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea requires countries to sign partnership agreements with distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) to exploit offshore stocks. However, for migratory stocks, the offshore may serve as a natural marine reserve (i.e., a source) to the inshore (i.e., sink); hence these partnership agreements generate spatial externality.

In this paper, we present a bioeconomic model in which a social planner uses a landing tax (ad valorem tax) to internalize this spatial externality. We found that the tax must reflect the biological connectivity between the two patches, intrinsic growth rate, the price of fish, cost per unit effort and social discount rate. The results are empirically illustrated using data on Ghana.

EfD Authors

PhD Wisdom Akpalu Research associate
PhD candidate Kofi Vondolia Research Associate

Keywords

Centers

eeu sweden

Type of publication

Discussion paper

Reference

Akpalu, Wisdom and Vondolia, Godwin K, 2011, "Bioeconomic model of spatial fishery management in developing countries", Working Papers in Economics 490, University of Gothenburg.

Environment for Development

Environment for Development