The impact of stock collapse on small-scale fishers’ behavior: Evidence from Japan

To implement effective resource management and development policies, understanding behavioral responses of resource users to environmental changes and incentives created by management systems is imperative. A small-scale mixed fishery in the Maizuru Bay, Japan provides a natural experiment to evaluate changes in small-scale fishers’ harvesting and targeting behavior over the years that one of the key species in the fishery experienced a collapse of the stock. Using data on individual fishers across the pre- and post-collapse periods, we find that inefficient fishers were forced to shut down or stay idle along with the collapse of the stock, and this behavior led to an increase in the overall efficiency in the production of clams. The depletion of the stock, however, imposed a natural constraint on the operation, resulting in a significant decline in the maximum production achievable by the remaining fishers. We further show that the collapse of the stock not only affected the harvesting behavior against the declining species but also led to the expansion of the fishing capacity and effort to catch other species and the development of aquaculture as an alternative form of fish production in the region.