Today, there is a growing sense of urgency among fisheries scientists regarding the management of fish stocks, particularly among those who predict the imminent collapse of the fishing industry due to stock depletion. This book takes a game theoretic approach to discussing potential solutions to the problem of fish stock depletion. Acknowledging the classification of fish stocks as destructible renewable resources, these essays are concerned with the question of how much of the stock should be consumed today and how much should be left in place for the future. The book targets both economists and students of economics who are familiar with the tools of their trade but not necessarily familiar with game theory in the context of fisheries management. Importantly, the goal is not to give a summary evaluation of the current views of the ‘appropriate’ response to immediate policy questions, but rather to describe the ways in which the problems at hand can be productively formulated and approached using game theory and couched on real world fisheries. Game Theory and Fisheries consists of twelve previously published but updated articles in fisheries management, a number of which address a gap in the fisheries literature by modelling and analysing the exploitation of fishery resources in a two-agent fishery, in both cooperative and non-cooperative environments. The author’s work ultimately illustrates that the analysis of strategic interaction between those with access to shared fishery resources will be incomplete without the use of game theory.

This volume contains eleven articles which deal with different aspects of dynaoic and differential game theory and its applications in economic modeling and decision making. All but one of these were presented as invited papers in special sessions I organized at the 7th Annual Conference on Economic Dynamics and Control in London, England, during the period June 26-28, 1985. The first article, which comprises Chapter 1, provides a general introduction to the topic of dynamic and differential game theory, discusses various noncooperative equilibrium solution concepts, includ ing Nash, Stackelberg, and Consistent Conjectural Variations equilibria, and a number of issues such as feedback and time-consistency. The second chapter deals with the role of information in Nash equilibria and the role of leadership in Stackelberg problems. A special type of a Stackelberg problem is the one in which one dominant player (leader) acquires dynamic information involving the actions of the others (followers), and constructs policies (so-called incentives) which enforce a certain type of behavior on the followers; Chapter 3 deals with such a class of problems and presents some new theoretical results on the existence of affine incentive policies. The topic of Chapter 4 is the computation of equilibria in discounted stochastic dynamic games. Here, for problems with finite state and decision spaces, existing algorithms are reviewed, with a comparative study of their speeds of convergence, and a new algorithm for the computation of nonzero-sum game equilibria is presented.

This book includes chapters by experts from developing and developed countries that apply game theory to issues in natural resources and the environment, demonstrating the usefulness of game theory in policy-making and appealing to a wide audience.

Abstract: This paper provides a review of various applications of cooperative game theory (CGT) to issues of natural and environmental resources. With an increase in the level of competition over environmental and natural resources, the incidents of disputes have been at the center of allocation agreements. The paper reviews the cases of common pool resources such as fisheries and forests, and cases of environmental pollution such as acid rain, flow, and stock pollution. In addition to providing examples of cooperative solutions to allocation problems, the conclusion from this review suggests that cooperation over scarce environmental and natural resources is possible under a variety of physical conditions and institutional arrangements. CGT applications to international fishery disputes are especially useful in that they have been making headway in policy-related agreements among states and regions of the world. Forest applications are more local in nature, but of great relevance in solving disputes among communities and various levels of governments.

A critical input into the proceedings of this Expert Consultation were two discussion papers and 12 cases studies, contained in this document. The first discussion paper addresses the basic requirements and principles for successful management of shared fish stocks derived from game theoretical considerations and practical experiences. The second discussion paper presents the legal aspects of the management of shared fish stock.

Capture fisheries make contributions to the world economy that are below their potential. Many of the world's capture fishery resources have been overexploited with some facing collapse. This book presents an overview of the current economics of capture fisheries and examines how they can achieve their full economic potential

Following the publication of seminal papers by professors H. S. Gordon in 1954 and A. D. Scott in 1955, active research has led to rapid progress in our understanding of the economics of fisheries. Fishing, however, is a complicated activity involving intricate interactions between man-made fishing capital and naturally produced fish stocks in an inherently dynamic and stochastic setting. Consequently, in spite of significant advances, important sections of fisheries economics remain largely unexplored. One such area is the economics of migratory fish stocks. In 1985, the editors of this volume embarked on a research project concerned with the optimal utilization of common Nordic fish stocks. A fundamental feature of some of the most important of these fish stocks, such as the Atlanto-Scandian herring and the Icelandic capelin, is their migratory behaviour. Not only do the migrations continuously alter the economic conditions for harvesting these species. They also result in the periodical transfer of stock concentrations from one exclusive fisheries jurisdictions to another. It was readily apparent that this behaviour constituted a crucial determinant of the appropriate harvesting pattern of these stocks. More importantly, however, migrations are by no means a unique feature of Nordic fish stocks. In fact, it appears that migratory behaviour is exhibited, albeit in varying degrees, by all species of fish. It therefore stands to reason that migrations constitute an important aspect of the economics of fisheries in general.