به سوی بازارگرایی: نقش مزایده سهمیه فصلی منحصر به فرد

This paper explores fish auctions as a management tool for allocation of quotas and a motivating institution for market-oriented value adding (MOVA) among target fishery groups, as an alternative or supplement to the individually transferable quota (ITQ) system. A management model is developed where administrative allocation of fishing rights to preferred target groups is combined with auctioning of individual seasonal quota (ISQ) rights as leasing contracts to fishery companies. It is shown how the management model maintains the positive effect of ITQs in terms of maximizing the resource rent in fisheries whilst the negative effects in terms of privatization, unfair allocation, concentration of quota power and possibly weakened linkages between fish resource utilization and coastal communities, are avoided. The costs of the administrative constraints should be weighed against the advantages of the model: (1) Sustainability and fair social allocation of the rights to utilization of the fish resources can be maintained without privatization. (2) Motivating MOVA among target groups through the allocation of ISQs to the most market-oriented and efficient fishers is encouraged since quota is leased but not owned. (3) Collective use of the resource rent is extended to the wider community.

The purpose of this paper is to explore fish auctions as a management tool for allocation of quotas and for motivating regional market-oriented value adding (MOVA) without the disadvantages of the individually transferable quotas (ITQ) system which are privatization and possible concentration of quota control in a few hands and subsequent monopoly behavior. The first two sections outline the concept of MOVA and how it is influenced by the mechanisms of the fish auction. The third section discusses how regional fish auction models can be adapted for allocation of fishing rights (quotas or fishing days) to target fisher groups without reducing the motivating effect of MOVA. The last two sections discuss costs and benefits of quota auctions and motivation factors for collection of the resource rent.

In this paper, we have analyzed how allocation of ISQs through auctions might motivate market-oriented value adding in the fishing industry, which together with cost efficiency gains would generate further resource rent. Transferable license and quota systems are the only recognized systems that effectively create exit strategies in the industry where the participants themselves adjust catch and processing costs to the potential income from the available quota. In unregulated forms, these systems may however, promote higher monetary and legal entry barriers for new entrants to the industry. Those who have control over the quotas may generate monopoly profit without the MOVA. Under these conditions, new entrepreneurs with new market-oriented ideas may be discouraged from entering the industry and the industry may not fully realize the potential market-oriented values. In this paper, we have introduced the concept of ISQ which in combination with an open license system and quota allocation to target fisher groups, will lower entry barriers for new entrants, and thereby stimulate market orientation and cost efficiency. ISQ auctions generate resource rent for redistribution to society, the fishing community, or other worthy recipients. ISQs differ from traditional ITQs in that permanent quota ownership is not transferred, but fishers are offered a right to harvest a natural resource on a temporary basis. ISQs offer a management solution to improve market orientation and cost efficiency without first privatizing the fish resources within a concentrated interest group as in the traditional ITQ system. The potential political attraction for such an idea derives from the opportunity it creates for coastal and fishing communities to collect and take ownership in the resource rent through co-management. The privileged fishers who already control quotas may however prefer to keep the resource rents for themselves rather than to hand it over to any public body, with or without this financing resource management and fishery research. Changes in the rules of the quota allocation game are therefore a part of the political struggle where the outcome is dependent of the stakeholders bargaining power. ISQs may also be complementary to an ITQ system, if ITQ owners sell seasonal quotas to the individual fishers through auctions. Such ITQ owners can be individual companies (e.g. Iceland), communities (e.g. in Alaska), indigenous people (e.g. in New Zealand) or the POs (e.g. in the EU). A similar development is under way in Norway in 2003. Finnmark, the furthermost Northern County in Norway, has e.g. demanded regional quota rights, to be allocated among the fishermen and processors in their coastal communities. Leasing of user rights rather than ownership is not a new idea in economic theory. ISQs for commercial fisheries as suggested in this paper, should be analyzed further, possibly drawn on experience from such similar management schemes for recreational fishing and other natural resources and in the light of economic leasing theory.