Contracting Problems and Regulation: The Case of the Fishery

Abstract

Regulations in the Texas shrimp and other fisheries are incomplete, leaving many options for rent dissipation uncontrolled, because of high contracting costs among fishermen and political factors that mold government actions. Contracting costs are high among heterogeneous fishermen, who vary principally with regard to fishing skill. The chapter describes the private agreements that have been reached in a number of fisheries in the absence of government support. Models of fishery exploitation generally begin by noting that property rights to the resource stock are absent. As a more structured arrangement for restricting outsiders and for policing compliance of members, fishermen unions and trade associations are an alternative to more nebulous informal agreements. Heterogeneity of fishermen can be seen from an analysis of daily catch data from one fish house for the fall 1978 bay shrimp season. A fish house is a packing house that buys shrimp from fishermen and sells it to dealers and processors.

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