Abstract not available

Marine reserves have increasingly been recognised for their potential to address the pervasive problem of unsustainable harvest of fisheries worldwide. Biologists advocate the benefits of increased spawning biomass, larger modal sizes and greater densities of fish within marine reserves, and the possibility of spillover to adjacent fishable areas. Bioeconomic studies, however, find that pay-offs from stand-alone marine reserves rarely compete with sustainable yield management schemes, but that they can be beneficial when stocks are heavily exploited. Most of these bioeconomic models are analytical and deterministic in nature, and therefore ignore the redistribution of effort in response to closure and the inherent uncertainty of the marine environment. We present a bioeconomic analysis of a network of no-take areas around Stewart Island in New Zealand applied to the shellfish species paua (abalone) that incorporates both predicted redistribution and reduction in effort, as well as stochastic recruitment. A nested logit model is applied to spatially recorded catch and effort data by the Ministry of Fisheries between 1998 and 2003 to capture the two level decision-making process of divers. On any given day, divers decide whether to go diving at all, and if so, which of the 16 statistical areas around Stewart Island to visit. Weather conditions, spatially varying levels of catch per unit of effort and distance are used as explanatory variables to select areas for closure according to the �least economic impact� in terms of loss of diving trips. An age-structured biological model is developed with parameters specifically applied to paua stocks around Stewart Island. Virgin paua biomass as of 1974 is estimated on the basis of growth, survival, post-larval recruitment and egg production in the absence of fishing. Historic catch rates are then applied to find overall and area-specific levels of exploitation rates, spawning biomass, egg production, legal biomass and numbers of paua. In a final step, the economic model is linked to the biological model to simulate the imposition of no-take areas when taking account of the initial disproportional shift of harvest to fished areas in the first year, and the increase in overall pressure on legal biomass in the years thereafter. We contribute to the marine reserve debate by showing that in the very long run, the overall yield under closure of a relatively small area approaches and even slightly surpasses the yield under no closure for an assumed spillover gradient of 40% despite the redistribution of effort. The most important benefits of marine reserves emerge when stochastic recruitment is included in the recruitment function. In practice, predictions about the stock status and the impact of different harvest levels become much more difficult when acknowledging the inherent variability of the marine environment. The likelihood of stock collapse depends on the assumed value of two recruitment parameters, which highlights the effects of parameter uncertainty and emphasizes the role of marine reserves for population persistence. We also show that under uncertainty average yields under a management regime of a network of no-take areas in addition to the quota system can equal yields under no closure for an assumed spillover gradient of 40%, despite the increased pressure on areas adjacent to the closed areas. Our findings have significant implications for the management of the paua fishery at Stewart Island. For a heterogeneously abundant species, such as paua, spatial management in addition to quota limits could be vital in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the fishery given the inherent variability of the marine environment.

The Dirty Faces game requires players to perform iterative reasoning in order to arrive at equilibrium play. The game is dominance solvable with a unique equilibrium when it is correctly specified. The particular payoff structure has significant implication on whether the reasoning process leads to equilibrium play. This paper illustrates that the traditional specification - as used by Weber (2001) - leads to multiple equilibria and the game loses its dominance solvability. We modify the payoff structure and restore uniqueness. The resulting game, which is dominance solvable, is implemented in an experiment to test the depth of iterative reasoning in humans. Our data analysis suggests that some deviation from equilibrium play is due to limited depth of iteration. Additionally, we find evidence that the lack of confidence in other players’ iterative abilities also induces deviations from equilibrium play. / Thesis (M.Ec.) -- School of Economics, 2007

This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to examine the relative technical efficiency of the Washington State Ferry (WSF) routes operating in Puget Sound. This is the largest ferry system in the country. It is publicly operated and does not face direct competition from any other agency, public or private. Therefore whether or not the ferry routes operate efficiently is a natural question. DEA is being used increasingly for measuring technical efficiency in non-profit settings such as health care and education, where prices of inputs and outputs may either be unavailable or artificially set. Because DEA does not require prices to measure efficiency, the technique has an advantage in these arenas. This paper first uses DEA to measure the relative technical efficiency of each WSF route using two different comparison sets. Returns to scale are then evaluated for each route in three successive years (1995-1997). Finally, a Malmquist productivity index is calculated in order to evaluate total factor productivity over the three-year period. For further evaluation this index is then divided into two components: technical change and efficiency change. Overall, the findings show that most of the ferry routes operate in an efficient manner. The results do, however, show routes where there may be room for improvement and they provide a means to pinpointing areas where WSF may want to focus attention when making management decisions. / Graduation date: 2000

Using a panel data set on the local telecommunications companies reporting to the FCC for 1988-95, this paper investigates the subadditivity of the cost function, as well as technical and allocative inefficiency of the U.S. local telephone industry. The subadditivity test on the estimated translog cost function indicates that certain subdivisions of the monopolized regional markets between two hypothetical firms might lower total cost. However, the evidence is not as clear cut as in an earlier study by Shin and Ying (1992, RAND), with savings from a two-firm industry being negative on average over all possible two-firm output vector combinations. The results of the subadditivity test suggest that companies with a relatively high share of residential customers experience higher degrees of scale inefficiency. Specification of technical inefficiency as fixed company-specific effects results in a different efficiency ranking than the specification with random effects. The estimation results for the generalized (non-minimum) cost model suggest that capital is being under-employed relative to residual inputs. This finding does not support the theoretical prediction that an industry under rate of return regulation tends to over-employ capital relative to other inputs. The subadditivity test for the generalized cost function that accounts for technical and allocative inefficiency generated a much more favorable estimates of cost reductions from the subdivision of the monopolized markets than the test on the conventional specification of the cost function. The estimated losses from technical, allocative and scale inefficiency reflect potential gains from competition. / Graduation date: 1999

The thesis contains two chapters which address questions important both for the economic theory and applications. In Chapter I we show that inequalities are an important tool in the theory of production functions. Various notions of internal economies of scale can be equivalently expressed in terms of upper or lower bounds on production functions. In the problem of aggregation of efficiently allocated goods, if one is concerned with two-sided bounds as opposed to exact expressions, the aggregate production function can be derived from some general assumptions about production units subject to aggregation. The approach used does not require smoothness or convexity properties. In Chapter II we introduce a new forecasting techniques essential parts of which include using average high-order polynomial estimators for in-sample fit and low-order polynomial extension for out-of-sample fit. We provide some statements following the Gauss-Markov theorem format. The empirical part shows that algebraic polynomials treated in a proper way can perform very well in one-step-ahead prediction, especially in prediction of the direction of exchange rate movements. / Graduation date: 1995

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2008. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009. / Includes abstract. Title from first page of PDF file (viewed February 3, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-137). Includes bibliographical references (leaves ). Also issued in print.

published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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