Prices versus Quantities in Fisheries Models

This paper discusses the conditions for generalizing the analysis in Weitzman (1974) to fisheries. It is shown that it is straightforward to generalize the analysis if the cost function is direct additively separable in stock size and catches. This leads to the conclusion that the analysis holds for a schooling fishery with and without search costs, but it might not hold for a search fishery. A further result is that for a schooling fishery without search costs, where the marginal cost function is steeper than the marginal benefit function, taxes are likely to be preferred over individual transferable quotas.