Market Information and Fisheries Management: A Multiple-Objective Analysis

Market issues are often critical to the regional and national benefits that can be generated from fisheries management. In actual policy analysis, however, market considerations are often treated as exogenous to the fisheries policy problem. Examples illustrate the relationships between product characteristics, market demand, and regulatory management. A multiple-objective socioeconomic policy model was formulated to demonstrate these relationships. Numerical analysis illustrated how price differences due to product quality characteristics affect the selection of regulatory controls and the attainment of policy objectives. Results demonstrated that selection of regulatory instruments, including allowable effort and mesh size, will vary depending on size-related price differences and the relative values on noncomplementary objectives such as profits and employment. Results also showed that dynamic harvest patterns for each age-class display greater differences across scenarios relative to stock size and stock composition. For the scenario where product quality and price are functions of season length, socioeconomic information was summarized in the form of policy frontiers. These frontiers demonstrate the intertemporal and capitalized trade-offs between profits, employment, and stock size. This approach has potential for use, with some limitations, within the fisheries policy-making process