Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Evaluating the technical efficiencies of fishing vessels to achieve effective management of overexploited fisheries

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Global marine capture fisheries are undergoing serious stress, with overfishing as one of the major problems. In order to mitigate the overexploitation of capture fisheries, government regulation or fisheries management is necessary. Among various management approaches, vessel quantity control is being widely employed. To achieve effective governance of fisheries, the technical efficiency (TE) issue needs to be considered in the implementation of vessel quantity control. Using the Pacific saury (Cololabis saira) stick-held dip net fishery in Japan as a case study, this paper estimated the TE of sampled fishing vessels and explored the possible factors affecting the gap in efficiency. This paper aims to provide suggestions for a better implementation of vessel quantity control in global Pacific saury fishery, and also to serve as an empirical example of integrating TE analysis into management of overexploited fisheries for achieving satisfactory effects. Results show the TE score of the sampled fishery averaged around 0.7 from 2009 to 2014, and factors concerning owners/skippers’ motivation such as vessel ownership and specialization, vessel tonnage as well as skippers’ age show positive effects on the TE. Our findings in the present work provide important strategies for mitigating overexploitation in fisheries. Conducting technical efficiency analysis of targeted fisheries is a vital issue to be considered for designing and realizing an effective implementation of fisheries management approaches. The large vessels and the enthusiasm of vessel owners/skippers need to be particularly addressed when vessel quantity limit is considered to mitigate the problem of overfishing.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aigner D, Lovell CAK, Schmidt P (1977) Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models. J Econ 6(1):21–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Årland K, Bjørndal T (2002) Fisheries management in Norway—an overview. Mar Policy 26(4):307–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson R, Fish M, Xia Y, Michello F (1999) Measuring efficiency in the hotel industry: a stochastic frontier approach. Int J Hosp Manag 18(1):45–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battese GE (1992) Frontier production functions and technical efficiency: a survey of empirical applications in agricultural economics. Agric Econ 7(3):185–208

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battese GE, Coelli TJ (1995) A model for technical inefficiency effects in a stochastic frontier production function for panel data. Empir Econ 20:325–332

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battese GE, Heshmati A, Hjalmarsson L (2000) Efficiency of labour use in the Swedish banking industry: a stochastic frontier approach. Empir Econ 25(4):623–640

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beddington JR, Agnew DJ, Clark CW (2007) Current problems in the management of marine fisheries. Science 316(5832):1713–1716

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caddy JF, Cochrane KL (2001) A review of fisheries management past and present and some future perspectives for the third millennium. Ocean Coast Manag 44(9):653–682

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell HF, Hand AJ (1998) Joint ventures and technology transfer: the Solomon Islands pole-and-line fishery. J Dev Econ 57:421–442

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Charles AT (1997) Fisheries management in Atlantic Canada. Ocean Coast Manag 35(2):101–119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coelli TJ (1995) Estimators and hypothesis tests for a stochastic frontier function: a Monte Carlo analysis. J Prod Anal 6:247–268

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coelli TJ, Rao DSP, O'Donnell CJ, Battese GE (2005) An introduction to efficiency and productivity analysis. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham S, Whitmarsh D (1980) Fishing effort and fishing policy. Mar Policy 5:309–316

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham S, Bostock T (eds) (2005) Successful fisheries management: issues, case studies and perspectives. Eburon Academic Publishers, Delft, the Netherlands

  • del Hoyo JJG, Espino DC, Toribio RJ (2004) Determination of technical efficiency of fisheries by stochastic frontier models: a case on the Gulf of Cadiz (Spain). ICES J Mar Sci: J Conseil 61:416–421

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Esmaeili A (2006) Technical efficiency analysis for the Iranian fishery in the Persian Gulf. ICES J Mar Sci: J Conseil 63:1759–1764

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Food and Agriculture Organization (2014) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3720e.pdf Cited 15 May 2016

  • Farrell MJ (1957) The measurement of productive efficiency. J Royal Stat Soc Ser A (General) 120:253–290

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Felthoven RG (2002) Effects of the American Fisheries Act on capacity, utilization and technical efficiency. Mar Resour Econ 17(3):181–205

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fisheries Research Agency of Japan (2014) Stock assessment of the Northwest subpopulation of Pacific saury. http://abchan.fra.go.jp/digests26/details/2609.pdf Cited 12 Nov 2015 (in Japanese)

  • Fousekis P, Klonaris S (2003) Technical efficiency determinants for fisheries: a study of trammel netters in Greece. Fish Res 63(1):85–95

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Japanese Fisheries Agency (2015) http://www.jfa.maff.go.jp/j/press/kokusai/150903.html. Accessed 12 Oct 2015a (in Japanese)

  • Japanese Fisheries Agency (2016) Name list of the permitted Pacific saury vessels managed by MAFF. http://www.jfa.maff.go.jp/j/kikaku/sitei/pdf/sanma2016.pdf. Accessed 23 Nov 2015b (in Japanese)

  • Hannesson R (1983) Bioeconomic production function in fisheries: theoretical and empirical analysis. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 40(7):968–982

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holden ST, Bezabih M (2008) Gender and land productivity on rented land in Ethiopia. In: Holden ST, Otsuka K, Place FM (eds) The emergence of land markets in Africa: impacts on poverty, equity and efficiency. Resources for the Future, Washington

  • Huang WB, Huang YC (2015) Maturity characteristics of Pacific saury during fishing season in the northwest pacific. J Mar Sci Technol (Taiwan) 23(5):819–826

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalirajan KP, Tse YK (1989) Technical efficiency measures for the Malaysian food manufacturing industry. Dev Econ 27(2):174–184

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim DH, Lee KH, Bae BS, Park SW (2011) Productive efficiency of the sandfish Arctoscopus japonicus coastal gillnet fishery using stochastic frontier analysis. Fish Sci 77(1):35–40

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirkley JE, Squires D, Strand IE (1995) Assessing technical efficiency in commercial fisheries: the mid-Atlantic Sea scallop fishery. Am J Agric Econ 77(3):686–697

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirkley JE, Squires D, Strand IE (1998) Characterizing managerial skill and technical efficiency in a fishery. J Prod Anal 9(2):145–160

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kompas T, Che TN, Grafton RQ (2004) Technical efficiency effects of input controls: evidence from Australia's banana prawn fishery. Appl Econ 36(15):1631–1641

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Makino M (2011) Fisheries management in Japan: its institutional features and case studies. Springer, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McPhee D (2008) Fisheries management in Australia. Federation Press, Sydney

    Google Scholar 

  • Meeusen W, van den Broeck J (1977) Efficiency estimation from cobb-Douglas production functions with composed error. Int Econ Rev 18(2):435–444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (2012) Annual statistics of fishery and fish culture. http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/List.do?lid=000001129478 Cited 5 Nov 2015a

  • Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (2013) Annual statistics of fishery and fish culture. http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/List.do?lid=000001129478 Cited 10 Dec 2015b

  • North Pacific Fisheries Commission. http://nwpbfo.nomaki.jp Cited 15 Dec 2015

  • Pascoe S, Andersen JL, de Wilde JW (2001) The impact of management regulation on the technical efficiency of vessels in the Dutch beam trawl fishery. Eur Rev Agric Econ 28(2):187–206

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pascoe S, Coglan L (2002) The contribution of unmeasurable inputs to fisheries production: an analysis of technical efficiency of fishing vessels in the English Channel. Am J Agric Econ 84(3):585–597

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sakai Y, Mori K, Yagi N (2012) The technical efficiency analysis for Japanese fishery: the case for the offshore bottom trawl fishery in Hokkaido. J Int Fish 11:101–119 (in Japanese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharma KR, Leung PS (1998) Technical efficiency of the longline fishery in Hawaii: an application of a stochastic production frontier. Mar Resour Econ 13(4):259–274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shen G, Heino M (2014) An overview of marine fisheries management in China. Mar Policy 44:265–272

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Squires D, Grafton RQ, Alam MF, Omar IH (2003) Technical efficiency in the Malaysian gill net artisanal fishery. Environ Dev Econ 8(03):481–504

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tingley D, Pascoe S, Coglan L (2005) Factors affecting technical efficiency in fisheries: stochastic production frontier versus data envelopment analysis approaches. Fish Res 73(3):363–376

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watanabe Y, Butler JL, Mori T (1988) Growth of Pacific saury, Cololabis saira, in the northeastern and northwestern Pacific Ocean. Fish Bull 86(3):489–498

    Google Scholar 

  • Waldo S (2006) Capacity and Efficiency in Swedish Pelagic Fisheries IDEMA/SLI Working Paper No. 2006:1. Lund: Swedish Institute for Food and Agricultural Economics

  • Yantai Daily Newspaper (2015). Jinglu Fisheries Company caught 280,000 tonnes of Pacific saury in 2014. http://www.shm.com.cn/ytrb/html/2015-01/30/content_3076643.htm Cited 18 Dec 2015 (in Chinese)

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors express their sincere thanks to the staff of the Habomai Fisheries Cooperative Association for providing the valuable data and information. We would like to thank the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for providing the scholarship to the first author.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan

    Chenxing Yang & Xiaobo Lou

  2. Mie University, Tsu, Japan

    Takahiro Matsui

  3. University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Junbo Zhang

Authors
  1. Chenxing Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Xiaobo Lou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Takahiro Matsui
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Junbo Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Junbo Zhang.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yang, C., Lou, X., Matsui, T. et al. Evaluating the technical efficiencies of fishing vessels to achieve effective management of overexploited fisheries. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 22, 1149–1162 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-016-9719-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-016-9719-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation