International effects of fisheries support policies

Abstract

This paper examines how fisheries policies affect domestic versus foreign fishing efforts. In line with previous work, the paper finds that policies directly affecting fishing costs (e.g. fuel or input subsidies) are more likely to lead to overfishing than those based on income or fixed assets such as vessels. This new work, based on a disaggregated global model where regional fishers operate interdependently, shows that fuel tax concessions (FTCs) tend to encourage more fishing effort in domestic fisheries and less in foreign ones because the fisher must take on fuel at a domestic port to take advantage of the policy.