Long-term effects of group rights to fisheries: Evaluating the Western Alaska Community Development Quota program

Restricting access to fisheries and other common property resources through creation of individual transferable rights has been documented to create wealth and promote conservation, but has also reduced employment and increased inequality in fishing communities. Creating group rights instead of individual rights has been suggested as an alternative strategy that could realize the benefits with diminished social cost; however, little independent evaluation of actual implementations of group rights to fisheries has occurred. The Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) program represents an example of allocation of group fishery rights to six not-for-profit organizations representing 65 small, largely Indigenous coastal communities. Using a unique data set of individual and household survey records spanning more than 25 years, we applied a difference-in-differences approach to measure changes in a variety of social and economic indicators, including Indigenous language use and educational attainment, employment, earnings, income, and poverty status, while controlling for demographic and general economic changes over the years. We found significant differences in outcomes for individuals and households in CDQ-participating communities from those residing in nearby communities ineligible for participation. Differences were especially pronounced for earnings and income. Results suggest that group rights can provide significant social benefits. The relatively small community populations provides insufficient power to determine statistically whether the benefits of the CDQ program have been increasing or diminishing over the years, or whether some communities have benefited more than others.