Regulatory Mechanisms and Information Processing in Uncertain Fisheries

We study the effects on fisherman decision processes of periodic (e.g., weekly) individual quotas. In the model, the fisherman must choose at the start of each week which of two grounds to fish on. The catch per week on each ground is a random variable and the fisherman does not know with certainty the parameters of the distribution of that variable. He does have estimates on each parameter and can improve these estimates by Bayesian updating. The choice of a fishing ground takes into account the expected catch on that ground and the expected improvement in information from fishing on that ground. Our study is concerned with the effect of weekly quotas on the joint production of information and fish. Various policy implications are discussed, and the results are compared with the policy analysis of Clark (1980) in the deterministic case. We show that the quota affects the value of information and that if quotas are transferable, then the quota may limit its own value.