Economic evaluation of the fisheries policies in Denmark, Iceland and Norway: Some performance indicators

The economic efficiency of the Danish, Icelandic and Norwegian cod fisheries is examined. For this purpose nonlinear aggregate models of these three fisheries are constructed. A particular mathematical approach to calculate the rent maximizing feedback control, i.e. the optimal dynamic harvesting policy as a function of the state variable, is applied. On the basis of this approach, the optimal harvesting policies for each of the three cod fisheries are calculated for years in the past for which biomass and catch data are available. Comparing the calculated optimal harvest and biomass quantities with the actual ones provides a measure of the degree of efficiency in these three cod fisheries. The ratio of optimal versus actual is used as performance indicator. The comparisons confirm the widely held belief that the cod harvesting policies of these countries have been hugely inefficient in the past. More interestingly, it appears that the inefficiency has been increasing over the last 3-4 decades, even after TAC-regulations replaced open access.