How significant is the common-pool problem in global fisheries, and how will climate change reshape it? Most fish populations cross national borders, diluting the incentive for governments to conserve. Climate change will upend the current equilibrium by altering biological productivity and by shifting species’ geographic ranges. These range shifts reallocate control across countries, potentially inducing maladaptive overexploitation by “stock-losers” and stronger conservation by “stock-gainers.” I use species distribution modeling methods to construct a historical panel that tracks fishery ranges over time and document a strategic response: extraction from a transboundary stock increases as the managing country’s share of the fishery declines. I then use my estimates to simulate the consequences of future range shifts under climate change. The behavioral responses to range shift net out to close to zero, but are economically meaningful for individual fisheries: stock-gainers increase conservation by 1.7 million tons (2.8%) and stock-losers decrease conservation by 1.5 million tons (3.2%) due to range shift. For the average fishery, this strategic response comprises 29% of the total effect of climate change on the fish stock. Under first-best global cooperation, conservation increases by 89 million tons (79%). Under a more plausible U.S.–Canada agreement, conservation increases by 14% and the behavioral response to climate change is dampened by 66%.
The latest draft is available here.
Countries facing over-exploitation of domestic waters may find it politically and economically advantageous to offer subsidies as a way of “decongesting” their domestic fisheries. Fuel subsidies, the most significant form of fisheries subsidies, may play such a role if they induce distant water fishing. We characterize the conditions under which fuel subsidies are decongesting and then estimate their empirical effects using a triple-difference design exploiting a change in Chinese subsidy policy. We show that China’s fuel subsidy increased fishing in its domestic waters, by suppressing a 1.24% elasticity of domestic fishing with respect to the oil price. Meanwhile, it decreased distant water fishing. We also show that non-Chinese vessels in spatial competition with China decreased their fishing in response to China’s subsidies. However, we show that the evolution of China’s subsidy policy away from fuel subsidies and towards spatially specific subsidies did promote domestic decongestion: Had China not changed it subsidy policy, vessels in our sample would have fished 39% more in the Chinese EEZ and 33% less outside of it.
The latest draft is available here.
The International Seabed Authority (ISA) requires deep-sea mining contractors operating in international waters beyond national jurisdiction to conduct biological surveys of their prospectively-mined tracts, creating a public good as a byproduct of private exploration. However, contractors face a principal-agent problem: they have incentives to underinvest in species detection if discoveries could create obstacles to mining approval. I test for this “taxonomic deflation” using over 160,000 biological samples from the ISA’s DeepData database, comparing taxonomic reporting detail in prospectively-mined tracts versus conservation zones. I show that samples from conservation zones are significantly more likely to report species-level identification, a pattern that persists after controlling for contractor identity, year, and environmental variables. A counterfactual exercise suggests that tens of thousands of additional observations would include species identifications absent the observed reporting gap. I discuss the ISA’s exploration requirement as a second-best solution to the deep sea’s public goods problem and consider policy options for mitigating the resulting incentive distortions.
The latest draft is available here.
When domestic fisheries are overexploited and fleet reduction is politically infeasible, governments may subsidize distant-water fishing to relocate effort offshore — a motive I call “decongestion.” A simple model shows how such subsidies can be domestically rational yet export overfishing to the high seas and foreign fisheries. Qualitative evidence from Chinese fisheries policy supports the mechanism, and the article discusses implications for international governance.
Under Review. Draft available upon request.
This paper describes the modern problem of critical mineral supply with respect to the choice between terrestrial and deep-seabed mining. We describe the global utilitarian social planner’s optimum and then introduce institutional features that drive a wedge between that optimum and the realized outcome. While the issues facing terrestrial mining are common in many settings, we introduce several unusual features of the management of deep-seabed mining which diverge from the global utilitarian social planner’s optimum. Deep-seabed mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction is governed by an international social planner, but its objective function is non-utilitarian. We discuss how some of its legal mandates can be interpreted for economic purposes, such as revenue sharing, and explain how these principles can apply in the cases of other international commons.
Draft available upon request.