managingfishingpowerthecaseofalaskaredkingcrab(.docVIP

Managing fishing power: the case of Alaska red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) By Genevieve Briand, Thomas Heckelei , Scott C. Matulich, and Ron Mittelhammer* *Genevieve Briand is assistant professor, Department of Economics, Eastern Washington University. Thomas Heckelei is assistant professor, International Program for Marketing and Promotion of Agricultural Commodities and Trade, Washington State University. Scott C. Matulich (PI) is professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Washington State University. Ron Mittelhammer is professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Program in Statistics, Washington State University. The research reported in this paper is a work product of WSU/ADFG cooperative agreement #COOP 92-008. This research was conducted while Genevieve Briand was a graduate research assistant at Washington State University. Abstract Concerned about the inability to manage the Bristol Bay red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) fishery in Alaska, and in particular to use in-season fishery performance to protect the stock by closing the fishery at or near the pre-season guideline harvest level, increasingly stringent pot limit policies were imposed in the last decade to elongate the collapsing seasons by constraining the fishing power of the fleet. This paper provides a rigorous examination of the effect that pot limits had on season elongation and whether a redistribution of quasi-rents occurred between large and small fishing vessels as a result of the policy. The analysis - based on an economic simulation model of the fishery - shows that pot limits did not elongate the season sufficiently to improve in-season management. Surprisingly, the policy allowed vessels to capture efficiency gains that arise from industry-wide reduction in fishing capacity. Both vessel size classes benefited from mutual gear reduction in all but 1992. Redistribution of wealth was found to occur only i