The Norwegian Winter Herring Fishery: A story of technological progress and stock collapse

In the early 1970s, the herring stocks in the Northeast Atlantic were nearly fished to extinction. This collapse is usually attributed to technological advances in the fishery, particularly the introduction of the echo sounder and the power block. In this paper we investigate the empirical impact of technological shocks on herring stocks. An ARMAX model shows significant evidence that, in fact, the power block was the principal factor in the demise of the herring stock. In addition, we look at the sensitivity of catch due to stock size and technological shocks. We observe evidence that prior to 1960 stock levels had little impact on revenue, however, after 1960 we measure a strong positive impact of stock on catch per unit effort. We are not able to explain this apparent anomaly, but technology shocks seem to have made the catch per unit effort less sensitive to the stock size.