We use Bayesian econometric methods to estimate dynamic bioeconomic models of marine reserve formation using simulated data and real data from the Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery. We test the effects of reserves on fish growth and catchability.

One of the greatest challenges facing empirical fisheries researchers is to endogenize fishing effort in bioeconomic models in a way that accounts for fleet heterogeneity. Such heterogeneity can manifest in a wide range of both observable and unobservable characteristics of fishing vessels and...

Life history models can include a wide range of biological and ecological features that affect exploited fish populations. However, they typically treat fishing mortality as an exogenous parameter. Implicitly, this approach assumes that the supply of fishing effort is perfectly inelastic. That...

Valuing ecosystem services with microeconomic underpinnings presents challenges because these services typically constitute nonmarket values and contribute to human welfare indirectly through a series of ecological pathways that are dynamic, nonlinear, and difficult to quantify and link to...

We specify a discrete choice dynamic programming model of commercial fishing participation and location choices. This approach allows us to examine how fishermen collect information about resource abundance and whether their behavior is forward-looking.

This paper analyzes spatial patterns of exploitation in the California sea urchin fishery. A Random Utility Model of urchin diver participation and location choice yields a conditional logit specification. Results demonstrate that diver attributes, location-specific features, and characteristics...

This paper examines the joint agro-wildfowl regulation of the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge in California. The area is jointly managed by the Bureau of Reclamation for both farming and wildfowl benefits. Production in both sectors has been declining recently, in farming due to nematode and...

Marine ecologists warn that humans are "fishing down marine food webs." To explore the economic implications of this phenomenon, this paper applies portfolio theory to aggregate fisheries data. It poses two definitions of a sustainable mean-variance catch frontier. It computes a mean-variance...