ABSTRACT
In the literature of fisheries economics there is a noticeable preoccupation with the phenomenon of resource rent dissipation. The proposed remedies have involved some regime of single or central management based on sole ownership or control of the resource, that would limit labour and capital inputs. Private owners of the fishery resource would want to maximize resource rent. The owners of factors would profit from the maximization of their factor rents in the form of producers’ surplus. By assuming perfectly elastic demand, H. S. Gordon’s analysis avoided consideration of consumers’ surplus in determining the socially optimum level of output of a fishery. The chapter focuses on the significance of consumers’ and producers’ surpluses in determining the socially optimum level of fisheries exploitation. The income redistribution effects of price changes and factor income changes will be ignored in the process of optimizing welfare.
