Optimal Choice of Regulatory Instrument in a Fishery under Uncertainty and Instrument Adjustment Constraints

摘要

All correctly designed regulatory instruments, such as taxes and quotas, are equally effective in increasing consumer and producer surpluses in markets when externalities exist, when complete information is available, and when adjustments of the level of the instruments are costless. However, with the existence of uncertainty, it is well known that one instrument or another may produce a higher expected present value of net social benefits than the others. In addition, costs of or constraints on adjusting the levels of the instruments also create differences in the relative performance of alternative instruments. A combination discrete-time and continuous-time stochastic model of a fishery is constructed in this report. Numerical dynamic programming is applied to the Pacific coast pink shrimp fishery, and tax and quota systems are found to produce approximately equal net benefits in this fishery.