PRODUCTION QUOTA IN MULTIPRODUCT PACIFIC FISHERIES

Assessing the individual firm's technology and costs in a multispecies fishery allows design of a more effective output quota prior to regulation by anticipating and controlling for the firm's regulation-induced responses. An empirical study of a Pacific coast trawl fishery indicates that the firm's flexibility of product decision is tightly constrained by its technology and cost structure. Hence, as the resource stock for the regulated species, sablefish, deteriorates and the trip quota progressively tightens, the firm cannot sufficiently reorganize its product bundle to preclude increasingly large sablefish disposal. This defeats the purpose of the production quota. © 1991.