Worldwide groundwater is a common-pool resource that is potentially subject to the tragedy of the commons if water extraction is not adequately regulated. In developing countries the regulatory infrastructure is often too weak to allow detailed monitoring of individual groundwater extraction....

Quotas are frequently used in the management of renewable resources and emissions. However, in many industries there is concern about their basic effectiveness due to non-compliance. We develop an enforcement model of a quota-regulated resource and focus on a situation with significant...

In this paper we undertake a systematic investigation of instrument choice when preventing a population collapse rather than maximizing industry profit is the overriding concern. Contrary to what seems to be the general consensus we find that landing fees do provide more effective insurance...

This paper discusses the conditions for generalizing the analysis in Weitzman (1974) to fisheries. It is shown that it is straightforward to generalize the analysis if the cost function is direct additively separable in stock size and catches. This leads to the conclusion that the analysis holds...

The paper shows that explicit modelling of sunk cost and a firm’s entry-exit decision in a traditional deterministic investment model may give an explanation of the slow transition to the optimal fleet structure following the introduction of individual transferable quotas (ITQs). The analysis...

It is widely accepted that decentralized control of local pollution is inefficient if the central and the local authorities are imperfectly informed. This paper shows how the central authority can introduce a flexible grant-in-aid system that induces the local authority to use a weighted...

This paper provides an overview of the literature on fisheries economics related to uncertainty and asymmetric information. It is argued that uncertainty is relevant in connection with present and future stock sizes and prices, while asymmetric information is important for cost functions,...

Very little principal-agent analysis has been done within the fisheries economic literature. This paper conducts a principal-agent analysis of fisheries. Within a standard principal-agent model, the low-cost agent must be allowed the same level of effort as under complete information. This...