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equal to some sustainable yield in equilibrium. The economic models of

the fisheries have built upon this restriction and have attempted to

define the sustainable yield which is optimum in terms of economic effi-

ciency for both industry components (vessels) and society as a whole.

As would be expected, considerable debate has been generated over what

is the true socially optimum yield. This section presents a discussion

of several of the more popular theoretical bioeconomic models of the

fishery. The ensuing discussion of these models does not attempt to

derive the "true" optimum catch and effort levels of a fishery, but

rather provides a description of current theoretical models.


Static Bioeconomic Fishery Models

 Common to all bioeconomic models is the recognition of the unique

 aspects of the resource and its productive setting. Three aspects of

 any given fishery, the use-dependence of the resource, the lack of

 property rights (common property) and interdependence of producing

 units, provide the motivation behind the development of bioeconomic

 models of fishing. Using these aspects, bioeconomic models have almost

 universally resulted in the conclusion that the workings of unregulated

 competition in a fishery generally lead to a higher level of effort and

 lower sustainable yield than that which is socially optimal.

 The first attempt at constructing a bioeconomic model of a fishery

 was done by H. Scott Gordon (1954). Gordon's analysis begins with the

 assumption that a fishing ground can be treated in a manner similar to a

 parcel of land in the traditional economic analysis of rents. Thus, the

 conclusion reached is that the optimum degree of utilization of a fish-

 ing ground occurs at the level of fishing effort which equates value of