Browsing by Author "Smith, MD"

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Open Access
Disconnects in evaluating the relative effectiveness of conservation strategies
(Conservation Biology, 2004-06-01) Saterson, KA; Christensen, NL; Jackson, RB; Kramer, RA; Pimm, SL; Smith, MD; Wiener, JB
Open Access
Disease Risk and Market Structure in Salmon Aquaculture
(Water Economics and Policy, 2016-12) Fischer, C; Guttormsen, AG; Smith, MD
Open Access
Economic incentives to target species and fish size: Prices and fine-scale product attributes in Norwegian fisheries
(ICES Journal of Marine Science, 2015-08-19) Asche, F; Chen, Y; Smith, MD
© International Council for the Exploration of the Sea 2014. All rights reserved.Improved fisheries management provides fishers with more opportunities to maximize harvest value by accounting for valuable attributes of the harvest such as species, harvest timing, fish size, product form, and landing location. Harvest values can also vary by vessel and gear type. Moreover, the extent of targeting can influence the ecosystem in which the fishers operate and provide important management challenges.Weutilize a unique dataset containing daily vessel-level fish landings in one region of Norway in 2010 to investigate the value of an array of attributes, including species, product form, product condition, timing, fish size, vessel type, gear type, and landing location for cod and other whitefish species, aswell as king crab. Wealso investigate to what extent landed value differs across different communities, firms, and plants. The results indicate substantial variation for all attributes, highlighting opportunities for fishers aswell as potential management challenges. For whitefish, the species landed accounts for threequarters of the variation in prices. For cod in particular, the fish size accounts for nearly all variation in prices. In these fisheries, market conditions justify management focus on the biological composition of the catch.
Open Access
Economics of coastal erosion and adaptation to sea level rise
(Annual Review of Resource Economics, 2016-10-05) Gopalakrishnan, S; Landry, CE; Smith, MD; Whitehead, JC
This article provides a review and synthesis of geoeconomic models that are used to analyze coastal erosion management and shoreline change. We outline a generic framework for analyzing risk-mitigating and/or recreation-enhancing policy interventions within a dynamic framework, and we review literature that informs the nature and extent of net benefit flows associated with coastal management. Using stated preference analysis, we present new estimates on household preferences for shoreline erosion management, including costs associated with ecological impacts of management. Lastly, we offer some guidance on directions for future research.
Open Access
Fair Enough? Food Security and the International Trade of Seafood
(World Development, 2015-03-01) Asche, F; Bellemare, MF; Roheim, C; Smith, MD; Tveteras, S
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd.Does international trade make all parties better off? We study the relationship between food security and the international trade of fish and seafood between developing and developed countries. Specifically, we look at and discuss the evolution of trade flows - values, quantities, and prices - between developing and developed countries. The picture that emerges suggests that the quantity of seafood exported from developing countries to developed countries is close to the quantity of seafood imported by developing countries from developed countries. What takes place is a quality exchange: developing countries export high-quality seafood in exchange for lower quality seafood.
Open Access
Management of an annual fishery in the presence of ecological stress: The case of shrimp and hypoxia
(Ecological Economics, 2011-02-15) Huang, L; Smith, MD
The emergence of ecosystem-based management suggests that traditional fisheries management and protection of environmental quality are increasingly interrelated. Fishery managers, however, have limited control over most sources of marine and estuarine pollution and at best can only adapt to environmental conditions. We develop a bioeconomic model of optimal harvest of an annual species that is subject to an environmental disturbance. We parameterize the model to analyze the effect of hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen) on the optimal harvest path of brown shrimp, a commercially important species that is fished in hypoxic waters in the Gulf of Mexico and in estuaries in the southeastern United States. We find that hypoxia alters the qualitative pattern of optimal harvest and shifts the season opening earlier in the year; more severe hypoxia leads to even earlier season openings. Failure to adapt to hypoxia leads to greater losses when the effects of hypoxia are more severe. However, rent gains from adapting fishery management to hypoxia are relatively small compared to rent losses from the hypoxia effect itself. This suggests that it is critical for other regulatory agencies to control estuarine pollution, and fishery managers need to generate value from the fishery resources through other means such as rationalization. © 2010 Elsevier B.V.
Open Access
Markets, Trade and Seafood
(Encyclopedia of Natural Resources - Two-Volume Set (Print), 2014-07-23) Smith, MD; Asche, F; Roheim, C
This entry describes the growth in seafood production and trade and the main factors causing these developments. We then review the leading economic research on the international seafood trade and markets with a focus on interactions of markets and the management of fisheries and aquaculture. Specific examples include the relationship between fisheries management institutions and international trade; the relationship between the value of seafood attributes and production practices; and the development of the Fish Price Index (FPI) by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to address food security concerns.
Open Access
Measuring welfare losses from hypoxia: The case of North Carolina brown shrimp
(Marine Resource Economics, 2012-03-26) Huang, L; Nichols, LAB; Craig, JK; Smith, MD
While environmental stressors such as hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen) are perceived as a threat to the productivity of coastal ecosystems, policy makers have little information about the economic consequences for fisheries. Recent work on hypoxia develops a bioeconomic model to harness microdata and quantify the effects of hypoxia on North Carolina's brown shrimp fishery. This work finds that hypoxia is responsible for a 12.9% decrease in NC brown shrimp catches from 1999-2005 in the Neuse River Estuary and Pamlico Sound, assuming that vessels do not react to changes in abundance. The current article extends this work to explore the full economic consequences of hypoxia on the supply and demand for brown shrimp. Demand analysis reveals that the NC shrimp industry is too small to influence prices, which are driven entirely by imports and other domestic U.S. harvest. Thus, demand is flat and there are no measurable benefits to shrimp consumers from reduced hypoxia. On the supply side, we find that the shrimp fleet responds to variation in price, abundance, and weather. Hence, the supply curve has some elasticity. Producer benefits of reduced hypoxia are less than a quarter of the computed gains from assuming no behavioral adjustment. Copyright © 2012 MRE Foundation, Inc.
Open Access
Nonspatial and spatial models in bioeconomics
(Natural Resource Modeling, 2012-02-01) Conrad, JM; Smith, MD
Beginning in the 1960s, ecologists, mathematicians, and economists started developing a class of models, which today are referred to as bioeconomic models. These early models started with a difference or differential equation describing the dynamics of a biological resource. To this equation one might add a second difference or differential equation describing the dynamics of "harvesting effort." Alternatively, one could formulate a dynamic optimization problem seeking to maximize discounted net benefit. These models provided important insights into the tragedy of the commons and policies that might promote optimal management. By the 1970s, more complex models were developed incorporating multispecies interactions, age-structured populations, and models with stochastic growth. In the late 1990s, spatial bioeconomic models were developed in recognition of the importance of location when managing biological resources. The objectives of this survey are to: (i) review some of the early models in bioeconomics, (ii) present some of the key spatial models in bioeconomics that have been used to assess the value of marine (no-take) reserves, and (iii) speculate on the direction of future research in spatial bioeconomics. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Open Access
Open access in a spatially delineated artisanal fishery: The case of Minahasa, Indonesia
(Environment and Development Economics, 2007-02-01) Liese, C; Smith, MD; Kramer, RA
The effects of economic development on the exploitation of renewable resources are investigated in settings where property rights are ill defined or not enforced. This paper explores potential conservation implications from labor and product market developments, such as enhanced transportation infrastructure. A model is developed that predicts individual fish catch per unit effort based on characteristics of individual fishermen and the development status of their villages. The econometric model is estimated using data from a cross-sectional household survey of artisanal coral reef fishermen in Minahasa, Indonesia, taking account of fishermen heterogeneity. Variation across different villages and across fishermen within the villages is used to explore the effects of development. Strong evidence is found for the countervailing forces of product and labor market effects on the exploitation of a coral reef fishery. © 2007 Cambridge University Press.
Open Access
Pricing of eco-labels with retailer heterogeneity
(Food Policy, 2015-01-01) Asche, F; Larsen, TA; Smith, MD; Sogn-Grundvåg, G; Young, JA
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Eco-labels are important features of many natural resource and food markets. They certify that a product has some desirable unobserved quality, typically related to a public good such as being sustainably produced. Two issues that have received limited attention are whether pricing varies across different eco-labels that may compete with each other and to what extent different retailers charge different prices. Using a unique data set of salmon prices in eight different United Kingdom retail chains, we investigate these issues by estimating a price-attribute model that includes two eco-labels and one country-of-origin label. Results show substantial variation in the prices of the different eco-labels and that eco-label premiums vary across retail chains. Specifically, salmon certified with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label has a high premium in low-end retail chains but no statistically significant premium in the high-end chains. These findings question the ability of the MSC label to transmit consumer willingness-to-pay for public goods through the supply chain to incentivize sustainable management. In contrast, premiums for organic certification are similar in magnitude across retailer types. In general, failure to account for retailer heterogeneity will over- or under-estimate a label's premium.
Open Access
Spatial patterns of market participation and resource extraction: Fuelwood collection in Northern Uganda
(American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2017-07-01) Miteva, DA; Kramer, RA; Brown, ZS; Smith, MD
While distance to markets is a key determinant of market participation for households that are dependent on natural resources, the distance to the resource stock is also essential. Thus, a household's location with respect to markets and the resource stock determines household market participation and associated resource degradation. Applying a discrete-choice framework for fuelwood collection in a developing country, we characterize the spatial pattern of market participation regimes and forest use. All else being equal, autarkic households are closest to the forest and furthest from the market, buyer households are closest to the market and furthest from the forest, and seller households are at intermediate distances. Empirical tests based on survey data from northern Uganda support the predictions from our theoretical model. Our findings have important implications for understanding the spatial patterns of forest degradation and determining the control group when designing impact evaluations of the effectiveness of development and conservation interventions.
Open Access
Spatial-dynamics of hypoxia and fisheries: The case of Gulf of Mexico brown shrimp
(Marine Resource Economics, 2014-01-01) Smith, MD; Asche, F; Bennear, LS; Oglend, A
© 2014 MRE foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.We analyze the Gulf of Mexico brown shrimp fishery and the potential impacts of a large seasonal area of hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen) that coincides with the peak shrimp season. A spatial-dynamic bioeconomic simulation embeds three biological impacts on shrimp: mortality, growth, and aggregation on hypoxic edges. Hypoxia creates feedbacks in the bioeconomic system, altering catch and effort patterns. System changes propagate over space to affect areas that do not experience hypoxia. Areas that might otherwise be considered controls in a natural experiments framework are contaminated by the ecological disturbance through spatial sorting. Aggregate predictions from simulations are similar to empirical fishery data. Average shrimp size and total landings are negatively correlated, as are hypoxic severity and landings. Shrimp size and hypoxic severity are only weakly negatively correlated. Growth overfishing, which varies with recruitment success and ecological disturbances, is a key mediating effect.
Open Access
Spillovers in regional fisheries management: Do catch shares cause leakage?
(Land Economics, 2016-05-01) Cunningham, S; Bennear, LS; Smith, MD
© 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.Regional councils manage U.S. fisheries. Fishermen can participate in fisheries managed by multiple councils, and effort controls in one region could lead to effort leakage into another. Theoretical modeling demonstrates that positive, negative, and no leakage are possible. Using difference-in-differences, we test for leakage across regional boundaries for a catch share program in New England and find evidence that the New England groundfish sector program caused spillover into adjacent Mid-Atlantic fisheries. Aggregate Mid-Atlantic harvest volume increased among sector members after the policy change. We find leakage in individual fisheries with similar gear and high market substitutability with sector species.
Metadata only
Steering the global partnership for oceans
(Marine Resource Economics, 2014-01-01) Abbott, J; Anderson, JL; Campling, L; Hannesson, R; Havice, E; Lozier, MS; Smith, MD; Wilberg, MJ
The Global Partnership for Oceans (GPO) is an alliance of governments, private firms, international organizations, and civil society groups that aims to promote ocean health while contributing to human wellbeing. A Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) was commissioned to develop guiding principles for GPO investments. Here we offer commentary on the BRP report from scholars in multiple disciplines that study the oceans: environmental economics, environmental politics, fisheries science, physical oceanography, and political economy. The BRP is a prominent, unique group of individuals representing diverse interests of GPO partners. We applaud the call for knowledge creation, but identify diverse issues that the BRP omitted: the need for effective governance to address data-poor stocks so that gaps do not dictate solutions; the deployment of projects that facilitate learning about governance effectiveness through program evaluation; and the importance of large-scale coordination of data collection in furthering the BRP's call for capacity building. Commenters' opinions are mixed on the likely impact of the report's recommendations on ocean health, governance, and economic development, but they highlight several key features of the report. A centerpiece of the report that distinguishes it from most previous high-level reports on the oceans is the prominence given to human well-being. The report emphasizes the commons problem as a critical institutional failure that must be addressed and focuses heavily on market-based mechanisms to improve governance. The report successfully acknowledges tradeoffs-across different stakeholders as well as across human well-being and ocean health-but there is little specific guidance on how to make these tradeoffs. Historical tensions among GPO partners run deep, and resolving them will require more than high-level principles. For instance, it is unclear how to resolve the potential conflict between proprietary data and the report's stated desire for transparency and open access to information. Some differences may ultimately be irreconcilable. The report appropriately advocates flexibility for the GPO to adapt solutions to particulars of a problem, avoiding the trap of one size fits all. However, flexibility is also a weakness because the BRP does not provide guidance on how best to approach problems that span multiple scales. Some scales may be beyond the scope of the GPO; for example, the GPO cannot meaningfully contribute to global climate change mitigation. Nevertheless, the GPO could play an important role in climate adaptation by facilitating the development of governance regimes that are resilient to climate-induced species migrations.
Open Access
Trade intervention: Not a silver bullet to address environmental externalities in global aquaculture
(Marine Policy, 2016-07-01) Asche, F; Roheim, CA; Smith, MD
© 2015 Elsevier LtdAquaculture has been the world's fastest growing food production technology in recent decades, and continued growth in aquaculture production is predicted. While creating economic opportunity, aquaculture is also a new way of using eco-systems, and there is substantial evidence that aquaculture creates negative environmental externalities. Although the most effective way to address these externalities may be improved governance, this approach is often difficult because most aquaculture production takes place in developing countries with limited management capacity. The fact that a large part of aquaculture production is traded motivates substantial interest in the use of trade measures to reduce environmental impacts. However, the wide variety of species, production practices, and governance systems present in aquaculture makes it unlikely that general trade measures will achieve environmental objectives. Rather, there is a real risk that trade measures will reduce economic opportunity, raise new equity concerns, and impinge on public health with little or no environmental impact.
Open Access
U.S. shrimp market integration
(Marine Resource Economics, 2012-06-25) Asche, F; Bennear, LS; Oglend, A; Smith, MD
Recent supply shocks in the Gulf of Mexico-including hurricanes, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the seasonal appearance of a large dead zone of low oxygen water (hypoxia)-have raised concerns about the economic viability of the U.S. shrimp fishery. The ability of U.S. shrimpers to mediate supply shocks through increased prices hinges on the degree of market integration, both among shrimp of different sizes classes and between U.S. wild caught shrimp and imported farmed shrimp. We use detailed data on shrimp prices by size class and import prices to conduct a co-integration analysis of market integration in the shrimp industry. We find significant evidence of market integration, suggesting that the law of one price holds for this industry. Hence, in the face of a supply shocks, prices do not rise; instead, imports of foreign farmed fish increase.

Browsing by Author "Smith, MD"

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