مزایده برای سهمیه بندی: آغازگر و چشم انداز آینده

Auctions are not a new concept in fisheries economics: wholesale fish markets have a long history of using such mechanisms. By contrast, fishing quota is usually allocated by grandfathering, and traded through a secondary market. Often the secondary market is not transparent and functions poorly. Furthermore, quota for various species may exhibit complementarities: there may be value-synergies for acquiring quota for particular species together. These characteristics combined make it unlikely that the current allocation of quota is efficient, and that complementarities are fully exploited. One approach to alleviate the problem is to improve the performance of secondary markets. Another alternative is to improve the efficiency of the initial allocation of quota. Using the example of bycatch, I illustrate why complementarities are likely to occur between quotas for different species, and how package auctions could be used to solve such an allocation problem more efficiently. A brief survey of the literature shows that recent developments in auction theory, experiments and practice, offer numerous solutions for allocation problems with complementarities, and could be used for the sale of quota. Which particular design is best-suited will depend on the regulator's objectives; auctioning of the quota is only one element of an overall fisheries management policy. Auction choice will not be a one-size-fits-all problem: trade-offs between revenue, efficiency, and other policy goals need to be considered explicitly. Given the currently limited amount of research on the application of auctions to quota allocation, this field poses many open questions of substantial academic and policy-making interest.