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Local Permit Ownership in Alaska Salmon Fisheries

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Title Local Permit Ownership in Alaska Salmon Fisheries
Names Knapp, Gunnar (creator)
Date Issued 2010 (iso8601)
Abstract Changes in ownership of limited entry permits by “local” residents of the region where a fishery occurs
may have significant economic and social implications for fishery-dependent regions. This paper
examines changes in local permit ownership in Alaska salmon fisheries, for which a long-term decline in
rural local permit ownership is an important policy concern. Theoretically, permit market allocate
permits over time to the individuals who are willing to pay the most for them. Any factors that
differentially affect what local and non-local residents are willing to pay for permits may affect the
equilibrium share of permits held by local residents. For remote rural fisheries in particular, these may
include differences between local and non-local residents with respect to access to and costs of financing
permits and boats, costs of travel to the fishery, opportunity costs of participation in the fishery, and many
other factors. As a fishery increases in profitability, differences between local and non-local residents in
access to financing matter more while differences in costs of travel and opportunity costs matter less in
the relative ranking of what local and non-local residents are willing to pay for permits. This tends to
increase the share of non-local residents among buyers willing to pay the market price for permits,
reducing the equilibrium share of permits held by local residents. This leads to a conflict between two
important policy goals: increasing fishery profitability and maintaining rural local permit ownership.
Consistent with predictions of this theory, the local share of permit ownership in Alaska salmon fisheries
is negatively related to permit prices (an indicator of fishery profitability).
Genre Research Paper
Topic Fisheries Economics
Identifier Knapp, Gunnar. 2010. Local Permit Ownership in Alaska Salmon Fisheries. 12 pages. In: Proceedings of the Fifteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade, July 13-16, 2010, Montpellier, France: Economics of Fish Resources and Aquatic Ecosystems: Balancing Uses, Balancing Costs. Compiled by Ann L. Shriver. International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade, Corvallis, Oregon, USA, 2010.

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