Essays on the Economics of Fisheries and Climate Change

Ocean warming due to anthropogenic climate change results in the spatial redistribution of fish and other marine species. Fish move towards higher latitudes or to deeper waters locating to areas with their desired thermal tolerances. The movement of fish in response to ocean warming affects catch, and these effects are expected to vary across geographic locations. This thesis aims to apply a production function approach to establish the relationship between sea surface temperature (SST) and catch of commercial fisheries using spatial data. The three chapters vary in terms of the area covered and the species and fishing method examined. The first chapter applies the production function approach to model catch and SST using high-resolution gridded data for yellowfin and skipjack tuna catch by purse seine in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO). The results show that yellowfin and skipjack tuna catch is increasing with SST. The magnitude of the marginal product of SST varies across species, type of set, and the location of catch effort. A cross-country comparison of the relationship between SST and tuna for countries’ exclusive economic zones in the EPO is presented in the second chapter. We show that the highest marginal revenue products, when adjusted for population, are reported for countries with the highest dependency on marine resources. The third chapter is a national and subnational analysis of the relationship between SST and catch of commercial fisheries in Aotearoa New Zealand, focusing on flatfish, jack mackerel, and trevally. Our results show that catch initially increases with SST but decreases beyond a certain threshold. These essays provide relevant insights for the review of fisheries management systems in response to ocean warming.