Property Rights and Entrepreneurial Income in Commercial Fisheries

Entrepreneurs who own and operate fishing vessels oppose conversion of open access fisheries to sole ownership and oppose Pigouvian taxes on landings because those policies reduce their incomes. Government buybacks of quotas and self-financed quota reductions increase their incomes. Under specified conditions with transferable quotas, optimal harvesting is a Lindahl equilibrium and a sequence of elections will converge on the Lindahl equilibrium.