From regulated access to transferable harvesting rights: Policy insights from New Zealand

The dramatic decline in yields from many of the worldʹs fisheries has prompted an assessment of traditional regulatory approaches to management. Transferable harvesting rights provide an alternative institutional structure in fisheries management. This paper has two aims. First, it links outcomes in the fishery with institutional structure. Second, the paper identifies several important institutional variables if a transition is to be made to from command-and-control management to tradeable rights. In particular, the transition phase must deal with the expectations that attach to the status quo structure of rights in the fishery. The paperʹs empirical content is drawn from New Zealandʹs experience with the introduction of transferable harvesting rights.