Bureaucracy, Politics, Economics: The Pathology of Fisheries


Bureaucracy, Politics, Economics: The Pathology of Fisheries By Bill Schrank ABSTRACT After declining rapidly because of low fish stocks in the early 1970s, the Newfoundland fishery -- harvesting and processing facilities, and employment -- expanded several-fold during the four years following adoption of the 200-mile limit. The expansion collapsed into bankruptcy during the 1981 recession. Through government intervention the industry was saved, only to collapse again, through stock decimation, a decade later. The growth of the 1970s bore the seeds of the collapse of the 1990s. This paper addresses the question of how the fishery bureaucracy, politics, and economics interacted to permit the expansion when it was recognized by nearly everyone concerned that more factors, capital and labor, were not required to catch and process the anticipated increased harvests. What lessons can we learn from this tragic story? View Full Paper (PDF file) View Political Economy Session

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