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Credible Enforcement Policies Under Illegal Fishing: Does Individual Transferable Quotas Induce to Reduce the Gap Between Approved and Proposed Allowable Catches?

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Abstract

In general, approved Total Allowable Catches (TACs) are higher than proposed TACs by the scientific assessment and reported landings approved are higher than approved TAC. We build a simple enforcement agency’s behavior model that generates—as a rational behavior—those two facts. The model has two ingredients. First, there exists illegal fishing generated by an imperfect enforcement technology; second, the enforcement agency cannot commit on announced penalties. We show that lack of commitment increases the potential benefits for national enforcement agency of deviating from proposal (scientific optimal) quotas. Although the enforcement agency wants to announce a low quota target to induce a low level of illegal harvest, it will find optimal to revise the quota announced in order to reduce penalties and improve fishermen welfare. Therefore, agencies find it optimal to approve higher quotas than that proposed by the scientific advice. Our main result is to show that when full compliance is not possible, and national agencies cannot commit, the introduction of Individual Transferable Quotas increases the potential benefits for agencies of deviating from the optimal proposed TAC by the scientific advised.

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Notes

  1. See http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/.

  2. See the Electronic Supplementary Material for the detailed description of the model used here.

  3. See Da Rocha et al. (2012b) who describe in detail the formal description.

  4. For example, 70 % of the population in Iceland has a negative perception toward the ITQ system, in spite of it was adopted almost 30 years ago in the country. Probably, because since the start of the financial crisis the economic value of the ITQs (ca 200 thousand millions Iceland Krons) decreased 50 %. This reduction of the economic value represents the value of catches during the last 50 years in Iceland (Einarsson 2013). For the case of Argentina see http://revistapuerto.com.ar/RP_Otros_Medios_Detalle.php?id=1373; and Chile http://www.elciudadano.cl/2012/07/18/55158/se-aprobo-en-general-polemica-ley-de-pesca-mientras-movilizaciones-en-su-contra-continuan/.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge from anonymous reviewers for insightful comments. Financial aid from the European Commission (MYFISH, FP7-KBBE-2011-5, no. 289257), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (ECO2009-14697-C02-02, ECO2012-39098-C06-00, ECO2012-39098-C06-01, and ECO2012-35820) are gratefully acknowledged. SV acknowledges the financial support from the Campus do Mar-International Campus of Excellence and the Norwegian Research Council (NRC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Campus do Mar, International Campus of Excellence, Vigo, Spain

    José María Da Rocha & Rafael Trelles González

  2. Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Av Burgo Nacións s/n, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Spain

    Sebastián Villasante

  3. Centro Nacional Patagónico (CENPAT), CONICET, Puerto Madryn, Argentina

    Sebastián Villasante

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  1. José María Da Rocha
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  2. Sebastián Villasante
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  3. Rafael Trelles González
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Correspondence to José María Da Rocha.

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Da Rocha, J.M., Villasante, S. & González, R.T. Credible Enforcement Policies Under Illegal Fishing: Does Individual Transferable Quotas Induce to Reduce the Gap Between Approved and Proposed Allowable Catches?. AMBIO 42, 1047–1056 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-013-0459-6

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