Abstract
An empirically estimated harvest function for an off-shore longline fishing vessel is integrated with a demand model for swordfish, and costs. This integrated model is used to examine the economic viability of the conventional pre-trip revenue share scheme between fishing vessel crews and owners, and then to explore optimal fishing efforts to maximise profits. The results demonstrate explicit outcomes of fishing efforts in economic benefits between rational fishing behaviour based on the conventional revenue sharing scheme and optimum fishing efforts to maximise seasonal economic profit. This is due to the trade-off between the quality of landed fish and pursuing more fishing opportunities during a trip. There is a discrepancy between a crew’s rational choice of fishing efforts to maximise their share per trip and the vessel owners’ preference to maximise seasonal profit. We propose that it is necessary to move from the conventional remuneration scheme to align economic incentives and maximise economic benefits for both vessel crews and owners.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the three anonymous reviewers who provided substantive suggestions to improve an earlier version of this paper. The authors also thank KDWFC and the members of the KDWFC for providing data and continuous support for their research activities. This work was supported by the JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 17K07903.
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Ishimura, G., Abe, K., Kanazawa, K. et al. Exploring economic optimum fishing efforts: a case of Japanese swordfish longline fishery. Fish Sci 88, 245–258 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12562-022-01587-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12562-022-01587-0