Distributional Outcomes and Governance in Marine Fisheries: A Review of the Economics Literature

Distributional consequences are central to fisheries governance, yet they remain underdeveloped in much of the economics literature. While reforms such as rights-based management, quota allocation, and spatial regulation have been widely studied with respect to efficiency and stock recovery, comparatively little attention has been paid to how these policies redistribute income, rents, rights, and risks across heterogeneous resource users. This paper provides a critical review of the economics literature on distributional outcomes in marine capture fisheries. Using a systematic Web of Science search covering the period 2010–2025 (through mid-October 2025) and a structured screening protocol, we identify a full corpus of distribution-relevant studies and a restricted subset published in leading economics-oriented journals. We argue that this pattern reflects both methodological path dependence in fisheries economics and an implicit treatment of distribution as an institutional rather than an economic object.