The Relationship of Fish Harvesting Capacity to Excess Capacity and Overcapacity

John M. Ward, Pamela Mace and Eric M. Thunberg

Marine Resource Economics, 2004, vol. 19, issue 4

Abstract: To clarify the concepts of excess and overcapacity, we discuss capacity at its simplest level and stress the importance of financial incentives for fishermen in developing fishery management regulations to eliminate or reduce overcapacity. Why overcapacity-not excess capacity or capacity itself-is of importance to fishery managers is explained in terms of living marine resources that are treated as open-access fisheries. As a result, the amount of fish that could be caught by a fisherman at a target stock abundance level greatly exceeds what is actually caught at a given stock size; i.e., overcapacity. While intended to provide a basic understanding of capacity concepts, this note does not present all aspects of the capacity management problem in these highly diverse domestic fisheries.

Keywords: Resource /Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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