Fishermen's Response to Revenue Changes: The Norwegian Coastal Mackerel Fishery (Thalassorama) (Report‪)‬

Introduction It is well known from economic theory that rent seeking is an important factor in explaining fishermen's behaviour in open-access situations. However, in the fisheries economics literature (and particularly in empirical work) the focus has been on stock and cost effects, and the effect of changes in revenue has received little attention. (1) Some exceptions do exist though. Wilen and Homans (1994) showed that fishermen will respond to changes in the regulatory system by changing their products in order to obtain higher revenues. Several authors have also shown that the timing of the harvest can be important, since the quality of the fish, and, therefore, the price one receives, may change throughout the year (Conrad 1982; Anderson 1989; Kellogg, Easley, and Johnson 1988; Onal et al., 1991). Larkin and Sylvia (1999) showed that the regulatory system can be essential for exploiting the opportunities that seasonal fluctuations in quality give.