IIFET Home Page
IIFET 2000 Home Page


Technical efficiency in the Swedish trawl fishery for Norway lobster

By Håkan Eggert

ABSTRACT

To reduce fleet capacity in European fisheries is an important objective of the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy. The success of such programs depends both on the variation and the level of efficiency within the fishing fleets. If vessels with significantly lower efficiency level than average are decommissioned, the actual reduction in fishing capacity will be less than expected. Further, if the remaining vessels after a decommissioning program are not operating at an efficient level, future improvement in efficiency may even further offset the effects of the decommissioning program. This paper examines the level and determinants of technical efficiency for a sample of Swedish demersal trawlers, which mainly target Norway lobster but also shrimps and demersal fish in 1995.

The data on per-trip gross revenues, fishing effort, gear choice, month of fishing and vessel attributes are analyzed using a translogarithmic stochastic production frontier, including a model for vessel-specific technical inefficiencies. Output elasticities and returns to scale are also explored. The technical inefficiency effects are found to be significant in explaining the levels and variation in vessel revenues. The mean efficiency for the sample vessels is estimated to be 64%. The inefficiency model indicates that fishers are more efficient the more hours they fish, that older vessels are less efficient, that vessels from a city are more efficient than vessels from more rural areas, while the size of vessel does not influence efficiency according to the results.

KEYWORDS: Key words demersal fishery, Norway lobster, stochastic production frontier, Sweden, technical efficiency.


 View Full Paper (PDF file)

 View Efficiency and Production Relationships Session

  Instructions for authors
  Conference Program
  Contact us
  IIFET 2000 Web Menu


return to top