Abstract
The cod stock in the North Sea is threatened by overexploitation. To recover this fishing stock, pressure needs to be reduced. This implies that catch compositions with small amounts of cod are preferred by public policy makers. The present analysis assesses the technological efficiency of fishing trips in terms of the substitution possibilities away from cod by considering landings of cod as an undesirable output. A conservative non-parametric frontier technology approach imposing minimal assumptions and based on directional distance functions is applied to explore alternative fishing activities for Danish gill netters operating in the North Sea with the goal of reducing cod catches. Since performance on different fishing trips may be influenced by the operating environment, a four-stage approach is applied to correct for exogenous factors (Fried et al., J Product Anal 12(3):249–267, 1999). The corrected directional distance function efficiency scores reveal the behavioural inefficiencies, i.e., prospects for decreasing the catch of cod while catch of other species are increased.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andersen JL, Bogetoft P (2007) Gains from quota trade: theoretical models and an application to the Danish Fishery. Eur Rev Agric Econ 34(1): 105–127
Banker RD, Morey R (1986) The use of categorical variables in data envelopment analysis. Manage Sci 32(12): 1613–1627
Charnes A, Cooper WW, Rhodes EL (1978) Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. Eur J Oper Res 2(6): 429–444
COM (2001) 724 final. Proposal for Council Regulation establishing measures for the recovery of cod and hake stocks (2001/0299 (CNS)). Commission of the European Communities, Brussels
Chung Y, Färe R, Grosskopf S (1997) Productivity and undesirable outputs: a directional function approach. J Environ Manage 51(3): 229–240
Domazlicky BR, Weber WL (2004) Does environmental protection lead to slower productivity growth in the chemical industry?. Environ Resour Econ 28(3): 301–324
Färe R, Grosskopf S (2004a) New directions: efficiency and productivity. Kluwer, Dordrecht
Färe R, Grosskopf S (2004b) Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation: comment. Eur J Oper Res 157(1): 242–245
Färe R, Grosskopf S, Kokkelenberg E (1989a) Measuring plant capacity, utilization and technical change: a nonparametric approach. Int Econ Rev 30(3): 655–666
Färe R, Grosskopf S, Lovell CAK, Pasurka CA (1989b) Multilateral productivity comparisons when some outputs are undesirable: a nonparametric approach. Rev Econ Stat 71(1): 90–98
Färe R, Grosskopf S, Lovell CAK (1994) Production frontiers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Färe R, Grosskopf S, Zaim O (2002) Hyperbolic efficiency and return to the dollar. Eur J Oper Res 136(3): 671–679
Färe R, Kirkley JE, Walden JB (2006) Adjusting technical efficiency to reflect discarding: the case of the U.S. Georges Bank multi-species otter trawl fishery. Fish Res 78(2–3): 257–265
Farrell MJ (1957) The measurement of productive efficiency. J R Stat Soc Ser A 120(III): 253–281
Fried HO, Smidt SS, Yaisawarng S (1999) Incorporating the operating environment into a nonparametric measure of technical efficiency. J Product Anal 12(3): 249–267
Fried HO, Lovell CAK, Schmidt SS, Yaisawarng S (2002) Accounting for environmental effects and statistical noise in data envelopment analysis. J Product Anal 17(1): 157–174
ICES (2006) Report of the ICES advisory committee on fisheries management, advisory committee on the marine environment and advisory committee on ecosystems, 2006. Book 6, Section 6.4.2
Jeon BM, Sickles RC (2004) The role of environmental factors in growth accounting. J Appl Econom 19(5): 567–591
Lee J-D, Park J-B, Kim T-Y (2002) Estimation of the shadow prices of pollutants with production/environment inefficiency taken into account: a nonparametric directional distance function approach. J Environ Manage 64(4): 365–375
Lindebo E (2005) Multi-national industry capacity in the North Sea flatfish fishery. Mar Resour Econom 20(4): 385–406
Muñiz M, Paradi J, Ruggiero J, Yang Z (2006) Evaluating alternative DEA models used to control for non-discretionary inputs. Comput Oper Res 33(5): 1173–1183
Picazo-Tadeo AJ, Reig-Martinez E, Hernandez-Sancho F (2005) Directional distance functions and environmental regulation. Resour Energy Econ 27(2): 131–142
Seiford L, Zhu J (2002) Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation. Eur J Oper Res 142(1): 16–20
Simar L, Wilson P (2007) Estimation and inference in two-stage, semi-parametric models of production processes. J Econm 136(1): 31–64
Zhou P, Ang BW, Poh KL (2008) Measuring environmental performance under different environmental DEA technologies. Energy Econ 30(1): 1–14
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kjærsgaard, J., Vestergaard, N. & Kerstens, K. Ecological Benchmarking to Explore Alternative Fishing Schemes to Protect Endangered Species by Substitution: The Danish Demersal Fishery in the North Sea. Environ Resource Econ 43, 573–590 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-008-9251-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-008-9251-7