Papers by Thomas Thøgersen
Climate Risk Management, 2015
Marine Policy, 2015
ABSTRACT Achieving a balance between fishing capacity and fishing opportunities is one of the maj... more ABSTRACT Achieving a balance between fishing capacity and fishing opportunities is one of the major challenges in European fisheries. One way to achieve this is to introduce individual tradable quotas or similar management measures. In several mackerel and herring fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic, such systems have already been introduced on a national basis and the long term economic gains of this have been acknowledged. This paper takes this a step further and investigates the potential economic gains from introducing individual tradable quotas between countries. Overall, the results show that the gross cash flow can be improved by 21% by allowing the mackerel and herring quotas to be traded internationally in the Northeast Atlantic. This rent gain arises mainly from increased productivity by allowing tradability between areas and fleets. The analysis also shows that the Danish pelagic fleet will gain from increasing its share of mackerel and herring quotas, whereas the Irish fleets are incentivised to sell quota, if individual quotas are allowed to be traded among countries. This result is in line with the qualitative analyses that show that Irish fishermen targeting herring in the Celtic Sea are negatively oriented towards international individual tradable quotas, whereas the Danish pelagic fishermen have strong preferences for international individual tradable quotas.
Project “Energy Saving in Fisheries” (ESIF) aimed at investigating potential technical and operat... more Project “Energy Saving in Fisheries” (ESIF) aimed at investigating potential technical and operational methods to address the need to reduce energy consumption and associated costs in European fisheries. The study started with an inventory of potential technical solutions and ongoing projects in the participating member states. The economic performance of selected fleet segments was analysed with emphasis on the role of energy costs. This economic analysis considered aspects such as: break-even fuel price, factors determining energy efficiency, the economic potential for technological improvement and scenarios for future outlook related to possible develop¬ment of fuel price. Finally, the economic feasibility of proposed technological adaptations was assessed. On-going national and international research projects show the possibilities of saving energy by reducing the drag of towed fishing gears, changing the design of gear and components, using alternative ways to stimulate fish to...
Fisheries Research, 2012
ABSTRACT Since the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union in 1983, t... more ABSTRACT Since the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union in 1983, the management of EU fisheries has been enormously challenging. The abundance of many fish stocks has declined because too much fishing capacity has been utilised on healthy fish stocks. Today, this decline in fish stocks has led to overcapacity in many fisheries, leading to incentives for overfishing. Recent research has shown that the allocation of effort among fleets can play an important role in mitigating overfishing when the targeting covers a range of species (multi-species—i.e., so-called mixed fisheries), while simultaneously optimising the overall economic performance of the fleets. The so-called FcubEcon model, in particular, has elucidated both the biologically and economically optimal method for allocating catches—and thus effort—between fishing fleets, while ensuring that the quotas are not exceeded. Until now, the FcubEcon modelling approach has assumed that there is a simplified linear relationship between effort and fishing mortality. The present study introduces an extension of the FcubEcon model, the so-called SOMER model, that allows this relationship to be non-linear by linking the biological catch equation with the economic production function. Furthermore, the SOMER model relaxes the assumption of the joint production of fishing metiers, unique and separately defined sub-fleets, to allow for more detail regarding the flexibility to target specific groups of species. Thereby, the SOMER model enables the managers to assess the alternative management scenarios more accurately than the existing models.
Applied Economics, 2014
ABSTRACT The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) aims to achieve a balance between the European fleet c... more ABSTRACT The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) aims to achieve a balance between the European fleet capacity and the resources available. This can be realized either by temporarily reducing the fishing effort (i.e. capacity utilization) or quotas in the hope of increasing the resources available or reducing the actual fishing capacity. In both cases, the relationship between effort indicators and capacity needs to be resolved in order for the manager to introduce the right interventions. Previous studies have estimated these relationships in multi-species fisheries using either a multi-output distance function approach (DFA) or with a second stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. In this article, DEA and DFA are combined to reduce noise in the estimation and to establish more useful interpretations for the manager. The article compares the traditional DFA with the alternative approach for the Danish North Sea demersal trawlers. The alternative approach improves the estimation results and provides better estimates of efficiency scores, compared to the unadjusted DFA. Furthermore, the analyses suggest that the demersal trawlers have a limited ability to substitute catches of cod, plaice and Nephrops and that gross tonnage is a more consistent indicator of fishing capacity than engine power.
Fisheries Research, 2015
ABSTRACT Abstract Simple non-cooperative and cooperative game theory is used to explore the crisi... more ABSTRACT Abstract Simple non-cooperative and cooperative game theory is used to explore the crisis involving the European Union (EU), Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands regarding the size and relative allocation of total allowable catches (TACs) in the mackerel fishery in the Northeast Atlantic. The analysis of the mackerel crisis is based on a statistical estimation of relevant functional relations, and the behavior of the players is explained using a fully specified empirical model. Simple, non-cooperative game theory shows that all players have an incentive to act non-cooperatively, a result that is robust to changes in basic assumptions regarding demand and cost functions. Thus, using the estimated parameters and functions, simple, non-cooperative game theory cannot explain the cooperative behavior of EU and Norway during the mackerel crisis. Simple cooperative game theory shows that no player has an incentive to enter a bargaining agreement by forming coalitions, a prediction that is consistent with the actual behavior of the EU, Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands between 2010 and 2014 when no bargaining solution was reached. Therefore, the fact that the EU and Norway entered a bilateral agreement in 2010 and that the EU, Norway and the Faroe Islands reached a bargaining solution in 2014 cannot be explained by simple cooperative game theory. However, actual behavior during the mackerel crisis can be explained by opportunity costs, including alternative fishing possibilities and regulations, rather than actual harvest costs, but we do not have information about the opportunity costs of harvesting mackerel.
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Papers by Thomas Thøgersen