Applications of Dual Theory in Fisheries: A Survey (Report‪)‬

Introduction The public management of marine fisheries is often seen as the only possible means of preventing overexploitation of our fish resources. In order to assess the consequences of regulations, regulators need detailed knowledge of the technologies employed in a fishery. This is because the success or failure of a given regulatory system depends on how firms with given technological features respond to regulation. For example, output regulation might mean that firms will alter their harvesting strategies to catch different species, or alternatively that they will reduce their fishing effort, or some combination of these two options might be introduced. In general, different economic outcomes can be expected from the alternative responses. It needs to be emphasized that the economic consequences of a policy depend critically on the technological profiles of the firms that participate in the fishery concerned. Therefore, for the regulator it is valuable to make assessment of the technological and economic conditions before a given policy is imposed.