The Economics of Open-Access Fisheries
On March 10th MSc in Fisheries and Aquaculture Economics and Management Nguyen Ngoc Duy of NFH gave his trial lecture and defended publicly the dissertation for the Philosophiae doctor (ph.d.) Degree in Social sciences. The dissertation´s title is:
“The Economics of Open-Access Fisheries: Subsidies and Performance of Vietnamese Fisheries”
The dissertation adopts a sustainable development perspective for assessing the effects of subsidies. Although the key focus of the research is on the economic effects of subsidies, the ecological and social
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| Foto: Ørjan Garfjell |
dimensions are taken into account. The dissertation integrates the theoretical frameworks of bioeconomics and vessel economics of fisheries and empirical investigations to examine the research problems. The empirical analyses are applied to Vietnam’s open-access offshore fisheries operating in the South China Sea (SCS).
The thesis indicates that the Government’s subsidy interventions have had a negative impact on the sustainable development of the offshore fisheries. The design of such subsidy programmes provides incentives for fishers to invest in their fishing effort and capacity. The policy goal of improving the income and profitability of the fisheries by the use of subsidies can be achieved only in the short term under the open-access fishing scheme. In the long term, the environmental deterioration will counter the effect of the subsidies on economic and social sustainability.
The dissertation recommends that it would be wise for Vietnam to seek to operate a fisheries management system that is designed to prevent overfishing and overcapacity and to promote the recovery of overfished stocks for offshore fisheries, hence approaching the goals of sustainable development. However, international negotiations and the existing dispute settlements based on international law should firstly be used to identify an internationally recognized delineation of the SCS to avoid encouraging the presence of countries’ own vessels in this region with the use of subsidies. The establishment of an effectively cooperative fishing regime in the SCS region should be promoted. The calls for sharing the total allowable catch among the involved countries should be considered.
Finally, the dissertation contributes to the further development of the methods for comparing the economic performance and efficiency of vessels by the standardization of fishing effort and the estimation of a Salter diagram. It extends the traditional economic model of Gordon to illustrate the existence of intra-marginal rent for an open-access fishery with heterogeneous vessels and to model the static effects of revenue-enhancing lump sum subsidies on the fishery and individual vessels. It provides the first contribution to the literature regarding the treatment effect evaluation of a subsidy programme on a Southeast Asian fishery. It also uses different fish stock measures to estimate the technical efficiency of vessels due to the lack of stock estimates, which have been ignored in the previously published studies on Vietnam’s fisheries.
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| Foto: Ørjan Garfjell |
For future work, a proper analysis framework for assessing the effects of fisheries subsidies, including consistent methodologies, should be developed for the SCS fisheries. This review and assessment should address the economic, environmental and social outcomes, potential trade-offs and cost-effectiveness, as well as taking into account the size of the impacts and the probabilities associated with the potential outcomes.
The Commission
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| Foto: Ørjan Garfjell |
Supervisors:
- Professor Ola Flåten, NFH
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Dr. Le Kim Long, Nha Trang University, Vietnam
Committee:
- Professor Jesper Raakjær, Aalborg, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Aalborg University, Danmark (1st oponent)
- Professor Anders Skonhoft, Department of Economics, NTNU, Trondheim (2nd oponent)
- Professor Arne Eide, NFH (internal member and head of committee)
The disputation was held in English and was lead by Professor Jahn-Petter Johnsen.
- See more at: https://uit.no/tavla/artikkel?p_document_id=455249#sthash.99ETPYzJ.dpuf
Personal
Nguyen Ngoc Duy was born 1979 in Quang Tri province, Vietnam. He got a bachelor degree in fisheries economics and management in 2002, and a bachelor degree in English language in 2008 from Nha Trang University, Vietnam. Then followed a master degree in fisheries and aquaculture economics and management from UiT The Artic University of Norway. In 2012, he obtained a fellowship grant for advanced courses in natural resource economics and management at Norwegian College of Fishery Science, UiT The Artic University of Norway. From January 2013 to March 2016, he studied for his PhD degree in Economics at UiT The Artic University of Norway.
His research interests are natural resource economics, fisheries economics and management, ecosystem management, bioeconomic modelling, value chain analysis, economic behavior of firms.
From 2003 until now, he has also served as a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics, Nha Trang University, Vietnam. He has experience from positions such as coordinator, collaborator and advisory expert in some international projects related to training and research.
Contact details
Name: Nguyen Ngoc Duy
Faculty/department: Research group of Marine Resource Economics, Norwegian College of Fishery Science, UiT The Artic University of Norway.
or The faculty of economics, Nha Trang University, Vietnam.
Phone number/mobile number: +47 776 46112/ +47 40 57 0914
+84 3838 748/ + 84 983128350
E-mail address: nguyenngocduy@ntu.edu.vn or nng000@post.uit.no
The project’s website address (if relevant): https://uit.no/forskning/forskningsgrupper/gruppe?p_document_id=348219
