Fisheries management policies and Japanese direct investment in the Alaska pollock fishery

Graduation date: 2000The implementation of particular management practices to control the use of natural resources can unintentionally create barriers to trade in resources and resource access. Foreign firms have developed a variety of methods to bypass trade barriers. This thesis examines the use of foreign direct investment as a means of bypassing barriers created by resource management decisions. To examine this issue, the portion of the Alaska pollock fishery, that is contained within the jurisdiction of the United States, is used as a case study. This fishery has three characteristics that are favorable for analysis. First, the fishery has historically been dominated by one fishing fleet, the Japanese. Second, historically there is a single, dominant product form, produced from Alaska pollock: surimi. Third, there are distinct fisheries management policies that have altered who has access to the resource. I hypothesize in this thesis that Japanese direct investment into the Alaska pollock fishery has been influenced by United States fisheries management policies. These policies were the passage of the 1976 Fisheries Conservation and Management Act and the eventual elimination of foreign harvesting and processing of Alaska pollock from United States controlled waters. This thesis contains a descriptive analysis, using Alaska Legislative Research Agency data, for 1989, 1993, and 1997, and an econometric analysis, using a count data model approach and U.S. Department of Commerce data for 1973 to 1994. Results from the descriptive analysis show that Japanese firms have direct invested in Alaska onshore processing facilities. They also suggest that, though the number of Alaska onshore processing facilities declined between 1989 and 1993, the level of Japanese investment into those facilities was rising. Results from the econometric study are less revealing. Due to data limitations, an analysis at the Alaska level did not provide reliable results. On a more expanded region of the U.S. West Coast states, the analysis did suggest that Japanese direct investment may have been impacted by U.S. fisheries management polices. In an expansion of the study to more aggregate industrial levels, food processing and manufacturing, the results were mixed, with the estimated impacts of interest rates and exchange rates between Japan and the United States consistent with those of other studies, but with other variables not showing their expected influence