A bioeconomic assessment of the Bangladesh shrimp fishery∗

The present paper deals with a surplus production model of Verhulst-Schaefer for Bangladesh shrimp fishery to develop a static as a well as dynamic framework to investigate the optimal utilization of the resource, sustainability properties of the stock and the resource rent earned from the resource. The basic objective of this paper is to provide the way through which long run sustainability can achieve an optimum exploitation of the resource. For this purpose, a conventional economic model is used together with biological population growth model to develop a bio-economic model. Standard reference points are analyzed and tax policies are introduced to achieve the standard reference points. In order to achieve maximum level of profit from the fishery, optimal steady state solutions, i.e., optimum levels of stock, harvest and effort are determined. Sensitivity of the bioeconomic model for separate discount rates and intrinsic growth rates are discussed. Empirical data of the Bangladesh shrimp resource is used to get the results.