TURFs and clubs: empirical evidence of the effect of self-governance on profitability in South Korea's inshore (maul) fisheries

Self-governance of natural resources has started to gain increasing attention as an alternative to command-and-control and market-based tools. However, a fundamental question remains: is self-governance economically beneficial, allowing it to serve as an alternative management tool? This paper uses a unique set of survey data from a territorial-user-right-based South Korean inshore (<italic>maul</italic>) fishery and applies an empirical strategy to provide some of the first quantitative evidence that self-governance benefits <italic>maul</italic> fishermen. We find that members of the self-governance group perceive the management system as having had a positive impact on four out of the eight criteria we tested: stock recovery, curtailed fishing effort, reduced disputes among fishermen and declining incidents of illegal fishing. Considering that these groups have been in existence on average for less than seven years, these results indicate that the management scheme has made good progress overall.