Fixed wage or share: Contingent contract renewal and skipper motivation

Þórólfur Matthíasson ()

Labor and Demography from EconWPA

Abstract: Fishermen around the world are usually remunerated by shares. Iceland is no exception in that respect. The fixed wage systems,that have been tried out, have been short- lived and their utilization limited. The fundamental question asked in this paper is: Why do almost all vessel owners use the same remuneration principles? The answer offered is that the circumstances under which fishing is conducted play a vital role here. Surveillance of the conduct of employees is almost impossible. Hence, vessel owners must develop some system for motivating workers and to discourage shirking. It is shown that sharing is better than alternative forms of remuneration in that respect. The production unit is a small platform that is not easily abandoned during a trip. The product ofr a given trip is well- defined. All of these factors help to explain the prevalence of sharing in fisheries.

Keywords: Remuneration system in fisheries; Contingent Renewal; Skipper Contracts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D33 J33 J41 L79 Q22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997-02-25
Note: Type of Document - Acrobat file; prepared on WordPerfect 3.5 for the Mac; to print on Apple LaserWriter; pages: 42 4; figures: included
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:9702002

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