ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that fishery regulation is one of the spheres of economic policy where what is the best thing to do depends on what can be done. It provides an interesting and important example of the notions of optimization and suboptimization and of the proposition that coping with external diseconomies will sometimes involve interfering with the nature as well as the scale of private productive activities. The determinants of the weight of catch are twofold, given constant natural population parameters. The first is the rate of capture of the fish liable to capture, which is proportionate to the amount of fishing effort. The second determinant of the weight of catch is the size at which the fish become liable to capture, i.e., are “recruited” to the fishery. The price of fish, given income levels and the prices of other foods, depends upon the total weight of the catch and upon its size distribution and upon its freshness.
