Shared Renewable Resource and International Trade: Technical measures for fisheries management

We examine trade and strategic interaction between countries that enforce technical measures for fisheries management (e.g., restrictions on fishing gears, vessels, areas and time) when countries share access to a common resource stock. Although technical measures are important as basic management tools, compliance with such measures makes it more costly for the fishermen to catch a certain quantity of fish. We show that under bilateral management, the resource exporting country gains from trade, whereas trade causes the steady state utility to fall in the resource importing country because the resource exporting country implements non-cooperative resource management when demand for a harvest is not so high. Under sufficiently high demand for a harvest, maximum sustainable yield can be attained after trade by what we call cooperative management; a situation in which both countries are better off. Under low demand for a harvest, trade benefits the resource importing country but may harm the resource exporting country regardless of whether it implements strict resource management or not.