Abstract

A prosperous fishery draws more effort (vessels), which eventually results in overcapacity and lower profit. Similar to this, fishing vessels leave the industry depending on their economic viability (or diminished expectations of future benefits), or when programmes like decommissioning grants encourage them to do so, and/or when fishing effort is consolidated within a system of tradable rights-based quotas (e.g. individual transferable quotas). By combining information on vessel characteristics with cost data, decommissioning grant information, and other factors that could potentially affect anticipated benefits or future risks, a discrete choice model is used to analyse the strategic decision-making behaviour of fishers when they enter or exit the English North Sea beam trawl fishery. The decision of operators to enter, remain, leave, or decommission can then be predicted. Vessel age and size, future earnings, operating costs (such as fuel), the status of the main target species’ stock, the effect of management measures (such as the total permissible catches), and the size of the overall fleet are all significant factors that can affect investment (a proxy for congestion). The expected marginal effects of each element are shown based on the findings, and their significance is highlighted in relation to the development of policies to match fishing opportunities with fleet capacity.