SHARING A FISH RESOURCE - BARGAINING THEORETICAL-ANALYSIS OF AN APPLIED ALLOCATION RULE

Besides fish-stock considerations, fisheries managers must often take into account competing heterogeneous harvest groups. A long-run alloca tion rule in a fishery decides more than just shares to the interested parties, it must also take into account the dynamic questions regardi ng how to divide a changing stock, between changing harvesting groups. Using the axiomatic approach in bargaining theory, we analyse two res ource allocation rules that were consecutively implemented in the Norw egian cod fishery in order to distribute the allowable catch between c oastal vessels and trawlers. The two allocation rules are compared wit h one another and with existing theoretic bargaining solutions. The ac tual allocation rules show little likeness to the well-known Nash barg aining solution, while there are some similarities to the less familia r Salukvadze solution, since shares vary for changing total allowable catch. The Generalised Nash bargaining solutions using man-years as re lative weights, is closest to the actual allocations. The trawlers are shown to I gain from the change in actual allocation rule at the expe nse of the coastal vessels. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.