Aggregation Level and Prediction of Fishing Vessel Behavior and Productivity

Fishing overcapacity has lead to unsustainable harvesting and rent dissipation in global fisheries. Only government intervention of some kind can lead to a reduction in capacity. If efficiency is the primary objective for the regulator, then the least efficient vessels should be decommissioned. Here we analyze the Swedish fishery using a panel of individual fishing trip observations. Trip data provide some additional information compared to annual vessel data that could be exploited at both aggregation levels. The effect of data aggregation choice on estimated vessel behavior and productivity is examined. Productivity estimates are utilized in a Probit model of exit from the fishery. We also estimate returns to diversification and obtain some interesting results on the tradeoff between trip length and number of trips.