FISH 608: FISHERIES ECONOMICS

This course will provide grounding in fisheries economics and their use in fisheries management.
The course will place emphasis on: trends in capture fisheries production (inland and marine); Importance of small scale fisheries as source of income and employment; Fisheries economics: equilibrium in an uncontrolled fishery versus optimum exploitation. Economic efficiency; economic overfishing; economic rent; Economic and subsidy support needed for development of small scale fisheries; economics of overcapitalization/excess capacity in fisheries; control and reduction of fishing capacity (e.g. incentive blocking management measures –TACs, License limitation schemes, vessel catch limits, individual effort quotas, gear and vessel restrictions and incentive adjusting measures- Taxes, individual harvest quotas, co-management and community-based fisheries management; Approaches to measuring maximum potential catch (fleet hold capacity, Maximum Economic Yield etc). Environmental fluctuations and fleet capacity. Prices, costs and internal rate of returns. Applied fisheries models including modelling of economic returns in fisheries.