The Ambiguity of Fishing for Fun

Abstract

Recreational fishing is among the most popular outdoor recreational activities in the world. However, uncertainty in angler response to changes in regulation has limited managers’ ability to prevent overfishing. We need to understand the heuristics anglers use to overcome informational and cognitive constraints that may limit their ability to assess stochastic attributes such as catch and environmental amenities. Using data from choice experiments, we specify and estimate preferences that rely on the theory of decision under unknown risks or ambiguity. We build on the observation that anglers interpret possession limits as targets or signals on stock productivity that anchor their expectations on retained catch, to specify a multiple prior model that relies on less onerous assumptions on anglers’ information and numeracy than conventional demand models. We integrate the economic submodel into a bioeconomic model to show that our specification provides better out-of-sample predictions than linear and CARA utility models.