Flexible Quotas as a Device in Fisheries Management: A Control System Based on Progressive Taxation

Abstract

"This paper introduces a new fisheries management scheme that might give a substantial improvement in rational fishery's exploitation. We have named it the 'flexible quota' system and it is based on the ideas to implement an individual progressive taxation for each vessel. The purpose of this taxation is to control total catch, and to make this system acceptable for the fishermen, the tax should be paid back to the fishermen. This pay out should be formed as a cash payment independent of the actual catch for each vessel, and should come from a cash register that is common for a certain number of vessels. This cash register is a part of a system organized as a number of hierarchical levels where the higher levels control the level beneath it subject to the same principle as the lower levels. In this outline of a pay back model, it will not make any difference for the control whether the fishermen work together or not, and a culture where cheating is improper can grow up. Numerical investigations with a model that embodies a logistic function for the recruitment of fish, and a simple harvest- and cost function, shows that progressive taxation both have better static and dynamic qualities than equivalent linear taxation. The investigations show further that there re two kinds of favorable choices for the degree of progressivity in the management scheme. Either the degree of progressivity should be small (but not too close to be linear), or it should be large. A small degree of progressivity generates more short-term profit, while more long-term profit can be initiated with a large degree of progressivity. Bad influence on the system from fluctuations in fish stocks, costs and prices can be avoided by omitting some medium choice of the degree of progressivity."