Fishing Behavior and the Length of the Fishing Season

Abstract

The basic hypothesis of this paper is that the amount of fishing that a fish harvester undertakes during a year is not determined entirely by circumstances which are exogenous to the fisher, such as weather conditions and resource availability, but is also partially a matter of individual choice. The paper develops a behavioral model of fishing from the perspective that the decision to modify the period of time over which fishing takes place is governed by a comparison of the marginal benefits and costs of doing so. The model is tested econometric ally as an error-components model using a 10% longitudinal sample of recipients of seasonal fishermen's unemployment insurance benefits in Newfoundland over the period 1971-93. The results suggest that the Canadian unemployment insurance program has reduced the length of the fishing season in Newfoundland by about 8-10 weeks.