Why Economists Reject Long-Term Fisheries Management Plans?

Resumo

Most .sheries agencies conduct biological and economic assess- ments independently. This independent conduct may lead to situations in which economists reject management plans proposed by biologists. The objective of this study is to show how to .nd optimal strategies that may satisfy biologists and economists.conditions. In particular we characterize optimal .shing trajectories that maximize the present value of a discounted economic indicator taking into account the age-structure of the population as in stock assessment methodologies. This approach is applied to the Northern Stock of Hake. Our main empirical .ndings are: i) Optimal policy may be far away from any of the classical scenar- ios proposed by biologists, ii) The more the future is discounted, the higher the likelihood of .nding contradictions among scenarios proposed by biologists and conclusions from economic analysis, iii) Optimal management reduces the risk of the stock falling under precautionary levels, especially if the future is not dis- counted to much, and iv) Optimal stationary .shing rate may be very di¤erent depending on the economic indicator used as reference.