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To increase the knowledge needed to successfully implement the ecosystem-based approach to fishery management, this dissertation investigates important issues within the economics of choice and the economics of displacement. In particular, a discrete choice model of the fishing location decision in the Newport, Oregon bottom trawl groundfish fishery is estimated and used to simulate the spatial management measure called the Rockfish Conservation Area (RCA).
The developed model indicates that it is possible to specify a behavioral model capable of capturing the key aspects of the spatial behavior of the groundfish fleet and yet simple enough to allow the estimation. The key aspects include the expected revenues in a fishing area, expected costs to reach an area, no information regarding fleet revenues during the period of one month prior to the choice occasion, and the pattern of fishing across fishing areas.
Fishery policy makers would often benefit from information on how a policy might change fishermen behavior before the policy is implemented. Discrete choice models may be used to make predictions about these potential changes. Most of the simulation work done so far, however, has not been validated. This dissertation contributes to the literature by comparing simulated behavioral response with actual response to implemented RCAs.
The results show that although the majority of fishing areas are predicted to less than 3% error, four out of 15 areas are either highly overpredicted or underpredicted. This underlines the inherent problem of the simulation not being able to capture the fundamental change in the nature of the choice problem that occurs with the change in policy. Addressing this problem will be important as these models continue to be used to inform policy makers. |
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