Collective rights in artisanal fisheries and the
trade-offs in fisheries policies. Analysis of distributive
policies.
Miguel Jara1 Jorge Dresdner2;3;4 Walter Gómez3;5
1. Magíster en Economía Ambiental y del Medio Ambiente, Univ. de Concepción
2Departamento de Economía, Univ. de Concepción
3 Research Nucleus on Environmental and Natural Resources Economics
4 Interdisciplinary Center for Aquaculture Research (INCAR)
5 Departamento de Ingeniería Matemática, Univ. de La Frontera
North American Association of Fisheries Economists 8th (2015) Biennial Forum, University of Alaska,
Southeast Ketchikan, EEUU, 20th – 22th May, 2015
MOTIVATION
• Since 2004 Chilean fisheries administration has implemented collective
quota systems for artisanal fishermen (vessel owners)
• Collective quota assignment has generated distributional concerns (unfair
distribution)
– Assignment based on vessel historical landings (2001 -2003)
– Incomplete information about actual landings records
• The fishery administration and the federations of fisher organizations have
agreed on a redistribution of quotas from large to small vessel owners.
• Equity seems to be an underdeveloped subject in the fishery economics
literature.
Equity in fisheries
• We try to model equity considerations in a model with
several objectives. We assume that organizations (and
authorities) care for profits, employment, and equity
• There are different ways to model equity: different units
of analysis (individuals, organizations, vessel types) and
different outcome variables (initial assignment,
landings, fisher income, net income of fishing)
• We look at organization as a unit of analysis and net
income of fishing (vessel owner’s income).
Fisheries.
Common Sardine (Strangomera bentincki) y anchovy (Engraulis ringens)
Mixed fishery covered by the industrial (1/3) and artisanal (2/3) fleet
Landings are used for fish meal production
Artisanal fraction operates under a collective rights system (RAE) while
industrial fraction by an ITQ system
• This is the most important fisheries today in Chile (by volume captured).
•
•
•
•
RAE (Régimen Artesanal de Extracción)
Coefficient of
participation by
associated vessel
based on historical
criteria
Associated
Organizations
fishermen
Associated
Organization Quota
fishermen
Associated
Authorities
fishermen
Fishermen nonassociated
Cuota Bolson (Residual Quota)
The model.
• The profit objective
max π ( f jn ) = ∑∑ p ⋅ q jn ( f jn ) − ∑∑ c j ⋅ f jn
j
n
j
n
j : index for type of vessel
n: index for organizations
p: Average price for captured fish.
qj (fjn): Level of capture by type of vessel for a given effort level (CobbDouglas)
cj : Average cost for a fishing day by type of vessel
Employment objective.
[
max l ( f jn ) = ∑∑ l jn ( f jn )
j
]
n
N: Total Number of organizations
fjn: Number of fishing days (effort)
j : Number of fishers in a vessel per trip
Equity objective (requires coordination between organizations).
• Theil index
N
min τ ( f ) = 1 +
∑U
n =1
n
( y ) ⋅ LogU n ( y )
LogN
τ = 0: Perfect equity; τ = 1: Total inequity. yn: profits by organization
Un: Relative fraction of total profits
y n = ∑ p ⋅ q jn ( f jn ) − ∑ c j ⋅ f jn
j
j
U n ( y) =
yn
N
∑y
k =1
k
Constraints.
• Minimal level of profit by organizations (opportunity cost)
∑ p⋅q
j
jn
( f jn ) − ∑ c j ⋅ f jn ≥ y n ,min
j
• Maximal capture by organization
∑ [q
jn
]
( f jn ) ≤ CnG
j
•
Maximal technical effort by organization
f jn ≤ max( f ) ⋅ W jn
Results
Calculations.
• Estimated productions functions for each vessel scale (large,
medium, small, boats)
• Optimization of objectives separately
• Optimization of one objective with a reduced support for the
other objectives according to optimum values for the control
variable obtained for the latter’s individual optimization
(generating techniques).
• Calibration of the model to represent fisheries in 2011
• Parametrizing the use of quotas by organization
Optimization of objectives separately.
Max.
Max.
Mín.
Profits
Employment
Inequity
4,638
5,747
4,190
3,337
200,000
197,038
213,177
113,308
0.076
0.093
0.091
0.042
Objective / Scenario
Base
Profits
Aggregated
employment
Equity in profit
distribution
Notes: 1) Profits in million CLP(1 million CLP = 2,068 US$), employment in man-days, and equity values may fluctuate between zero
and one.
(Multifunction) trade-off equity vs. profits.
(Multifunction) trade-off equity vs. employment.
Max and min values of optimized objectives for different values
of the parameter θ (with normalized objectives).
θ=0
θ = 0.5
θ=1
Profits
Employ
Equity
Profits
Employ
Equity
Profits
Employ
Equity
Min value
0.5533
0.5724
0.9449
0.6416
0.7180
0.9425
0.7294
0.9286
0.9457
Max value
1.0000
0.9996
1.0001
0.9999
0.9997
0.9960
0.9843
1.0008
0.9494
Variability
44.7%
42.7%
5.5%
35.8%
28.2%
5.4%
25.9%
7.2%
0.4%
C nG * θ ≤ ∑ q jn ( f jn ) ≤ C nG
j
Conclusions.
• The unrestricted equity objective does not guarantee the full use of
the quotas. Results based on unused quotas does not seem
empirically relevant.
• There are trade offs between equity and other objectives.Improving
the level of the equity index shall produce a smaller level of
employment or profits (except for a range of employment).
• Imposing as a requisite the full use of the quotas by organizations,
reduces the variability space of equity, meaning that the trade offs
with other objectives become very high. The space for
redistributive policies (in the sense treated here) is small.
Conclusions.
• In the base case, most of the effort is done with large vessels, which
suggest some limitations on the efficient operation of the fisheries,
since in the max profit case, more medium and small vessels
participate in landings.
• The aggregated levels of profit, employment and the index of
equity can be improved just reassigning the effort inside the
organizations.
• The trade-offs are not linear, such that the slope depends on the
position on the frontier curve.
• The base situation is suboptimal for the objectives discussed, which
suggests a revision of the system for assigning quotas.
Thank you for your attention