We study the compliance behavior of artisanal fishermen in central-southern Chile. Our empirical analysis explores the role of individual morality, perception of legitimacy, and peer effects as determinant factors in the decision to violate regulations. We control for potential simultaneity bias in the peer effects variable. Our results find evidence that moral standing, peer effects, and legitimacy considerations are important for fishermen's compliance decisions. Policy implications to improve compliance with regulations in artisanal fisheries are discussed.

JEL Codes: Q22, Q28, D63.

In 2010 a new management system based on harvest cooperatives called “sectors” was implemented in the US Northeast Multispecies Groundfish Fishery. We hypothesize that success of individual sectors might depend on their social capital. Sector members were surveyed prior to the implementation of the policy to develop baseline measures of social capital for each sector and again after the sectors had been operating for three years. We construct indices of bonding, bridging and linking social capital, information sharing, and trust and explore how these indicators of social capital have changed since the implementation of the sector program. We also evaluate the relationship between these social capital indicators and various measures of economic performance of sectors. The result suggests that the relationship between social capital and economic performance has strengthened over time. Profitability is associated with broader community and fishery-wide connections as well as bonding social capital within sectors.

JEL Codes: Q22.

We study the adaptive harvest of healthy stocks of shellfish that are faced with the risk of high natural mortality from a disease that is spreading along a coastline. This was the situation when Abalone Viral Ganglioneuritis (AVG) spread along the coast of Victoria, Australia in 2006. Abalone mortality on some reefs was thought to have been as high as 90%. In the face of an approaching virus, how should stocks at different reefs be managed? A stochastic, spatial bioeconomic model allows us to examine how optimal preemptive stock reductions are influenced by: (1) the probability of spread, (2) the mortality induced by AVG when it reaches a previously uninfected reef, (3) the form of the harvest cost function, and (4) a regime shift to lower biological productivity, post-AVG.

JEL Codes: Q2, Q22.

Expenditures on fresh fish, shellfish, and processed fish for home consumption are investigated for households in Malaysia. A sample selection system is estimated to account for observed zero expenditures and improve statistical efficiency of estimates. Results of marginal effects, segmented by ethnicity, indicate that household size and age of household head are associated with expenditures for all three fish products across ethnic groups. Location, urbanicity, and education are associated with expenditures on certain types of fish products among ethnic Malays and Chinese only. Policy recommendations include targeting larger households with lower prices for bulk purchases and consuming households in older age groups. Efforts to promote regularity of fish product purchases should be directed toward urban Malay and Chinese households seeking convenient cooking methods, while measures to boost fresh fish consumption could be concentrated among higher-educated Malay households, given their unexpected lackluster consumption rates and expenditures.

JEL Codes: D12, C34.