A Comparative Analysis of Fishing Rights From a Transaction Cost Perspective

Jing Liu and Tianbao Qin

Ecological Economics, 2018, vol. 153, issue C, 89-99

Abstract: Different types of fishing rights are used to address the problem of overfishing. The three most commonly used are limited entry system, individual quotas and territorial use rights in fisheries. Substantial transaction costs can be involved in the establishment and maintenance of fishing rights, including definition costs, enforcement costs and coordination costs. This paper compares these fishing rights by examining the three types of transaction costs they may incur. The comparison is conducted through an analysis of the success and failure of their applications in different regions (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico and South Africa). The main findings of this research suggest that, firstly, there is no panacea for fishery problems and the three types of fishing rights have different advantages and disadvantages in reducing transaction costs. Secondly, sometimes a mixture of the different fishing rights has the potential to create better protection than a pure regime. Thirdly, governmental intervention is crucial for overcoming residual externalities of fishing rights. This paper synthesises the literature which examines fishing rights individually by providing a comparison between these fishing rights. An analytical framework for comparison is established by linking the discussion of fishing rights with the transaction costs literature.

Keywords: Fishing rights; Limited entry; Individual transferable quotas; Territorial use rights in fisheries; Transaction costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800917312636
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:153:y:2018:i:c:p:89-99

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.07.010

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().