ABSTRACT
Today’s dominant approach to fisheries management centers on codifying and deploying ‘rights’ to create long-range incentives for economically ‘efficient’ production practices. These origins emerged after World War II: US government scientists aimed at managing catch to achieve the biological objective of maximum sustainable yield, while economists promoted limited entry into a fishery by creating and allocating durable fishing rights (Scheiber and Carr 1998). Both focused on developing ways to limit catch. Over time, attention has trained on the development of quotas (and most recently, markets for quotas) because a quota can act as a property right.
