Who gets what when fisheries management changes?

What is it about?

Who gains and who loses, economically speaking, from changes in fisheries management? Individual transferable quotas (ITQs) have been used around the world as a way for fish harvesters to have a stake in the long-run sustainability of fish stocks, but questions remain about their social and economic spillovers -- questions which have been difficult to answer given the lack of long-run data collection on payments to different stakeholders both before and after the introduction of ITQs. We leverage novel data to show how crew, captains, vessel owners, and owners of fishing quota are impacted by the introduction of ITQs.

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Why is it important?

ITQs and similar policies are increasingly viewed as an important part of responsible fisheries management. However, they have proven controversial due to perceptions of their negative effects for some stakeholders -- often with sparse data to actually assess these effects. Our study sheds light on the true effects of ITQs for captains, crew, vessel owners, and quota owners in the "Deadliest Catch" crab fisheries in the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands.