The papers in this issue are welcome additions to a fast-growing literature on the theory of fishery regulation and on experience with new institutions for fishery management.
The focus in this issue is on quota fishing regimes. These are a category in a class of regimes which feature 'rights based fishing' (RBF). RBF limits access to the fish resource, including some people by excluding others. Area licensing is another category of RBE Grafton (1996) reports a correlation between the quality of quota fishing rights and the success of the regime. This finding is consistent with other reports. Crawley and Palsson (1992) is an example. I develop my point of view using quota quality as a connecting theme.
I begin with the receut collapse of the Canadian Atlantic cod fishery 3 years ago. This event confounded experts who said the stock was undepletable based on 500 years of successful exploitation.
An 'enterprise allocation' regime was in place, governing the important off-shore (Grand Banks) component of this regionally important fishery. The quotas had been created and assigned gratis by the federal government to enterprises (two large integrated corporations partly owned by Canada and a group of independents). A new class of large, steel, bottom trawlers, some with ice-breaking capability, had been built with federal subsidies to fish the quotas, replacing foreign trawlers as they retired from Canada's new exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The quotas lacked all of the important characteristics noted by Grafton (1996):