ThursdayFriday
April 29-30, 2004
102 Fishery Sciences
(auditorium)
Ragnar ArnasonProfessor of Economics, University of IcelandProperty Rights in Fisheries: Iceland's Experience with ITQs |
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It is well known that the fundamental problem of economic inefficiency in fisheries, the so-called common property problem, is caused by inadequate or lacking property rights in the underlying natural resources. The introduction of Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) into fisheries may be seen as an attempt to remedy this deficiency. ITQs, however, are not property rights in the relevant natural resources (i.e., the fish stocks and their habitat). They are merely harvesting rights and thus far from ideal as property rights. Nevertheless, ITQs have been introduced in numerous fisheries around the world apparently with generally, even uniformly, good economic results. In this paper, I outline the basic theory of property rights and the strengths and weaknesses of ITQs as property rights in fisheries. I then discuss the Icelandic ITQ system and compare its property rights value with that of the New-Zealand ITQ system. Finally, the I review some measures of the economic and social outcomes of the ITQ system in Iceland.
Ragnar Arnason is a professor of fisheries economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Iceland. His recent research projects include the role of property rights in economic activity and growth, fisheries management on the basis of property rights including individual transferable quotas and community fishing rights, discarding of fish at sea, and the costs of fisheries management.
He holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics (1975), a MSc in Econometrics from the London School of Economics (1977), and a PhD in Economics from the University of British Columbia (1984). He has published over 100 papers, books and book chapters on various aspects of fisheries economics and fisheries management in both English and Icelandic.
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