Economics of Aquatic Foods: Combining Bioeconomics and Market Analysis to Inform Regulations That Deliver Value

Abstract

Bioeconomic modeling and seafood market analysis both have rich intellectual traditions that have contributed insights to understanding the economics of aquatic foods. This paper argues that these traditions, which developed mostly in parallel, should be combined more purposefully to understand management problems in fisheries and aquaculture. First, modeling the feedback between economic incentives and biological mechanisms is essential for avoiding management failure, and prices provide important incentives. Second, the form of management affects opportunities to generate value, influencing patterns of exploitation and the types of products that come from fishery resources. Third, price incentives in fisheries and responses to management depend on market context, including competition with aquaculture. By combining these insights with a modern empirical focus on counterfactuals, including both reduced-form and structural modeling approaches to causal inference, economists can inform policy and help to deliver a wide range of values from the production and consumption of aquatic foods.