Technical efficiency and the role of skipper skill in artisanal Lake Victoria fisheries

Lake Victoria fisheries are important to Tanzanian food security, employment, and foreign exchange, but they have experienced declining performance, largely due to overfishing. This paper studies technical efficiency and skipper skill using Tanzanian fishery data for the two major species, Nile perch and dagaa. The relative level of efficiency is high in both fisheries and several observable variables linked to skipper skill significantly explain the efficiency level.