Fisheries management is complicated in nearly all cases by a high degree of uncertainty about the current state and expected growth of fish stocks and about the economic and social factors that affect the desirable harvest levels. Even for fisheries with excellent data collection programs,...

Individual transferable quotas (ITQs) in multispecies fisheries create incentives for fishermen to avoid bycatch of species for which quota is scarce. However, when bycatch is highly uncertain, individual quota demand and prices may be volatile creating substantial financial risk for fishermen....

Harvest cooperatives were implemented in several US fisheries over the last decade during a period when US law prohibited implementation of any new individual fishery quota (IFQ) systems. Harvest cooperatives provided an alternative to individual quotas as a means to end the race for fish and...