Frank Asche

Aquaculture 613(1) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2025.743386

While policy priorities often focus on the impact of the seafood industry in coastal communities, efficient supply chains are more important for the competitiveness of an industry. With improved logistics, this increasingly involves third-countries with a comparative advantage in seafood processing. This paper examines the importance of the foreign processing industry in Norwegian salmon exports over the period 2016–2020. Using highly disaggregated firm-level data we document the importance of the foreign processing industry, as well as how processors differ from foreign importers that are primarily engaged in trading activities or retail chains. The results reveal interesting and distinct patterns across importer groups. Imports for processing are more concentrated geographically, with large importers clustered in processing hubs, primarily within the EU. We find that Norwegian ownership of processors significantly increases trade volumes and average shipment size. Foreign traders are the largest and most geographically diverse buyer group. Our findings confirm that much value-added activities in the salmon aquaculture value chain occurs downstream through foreign processing.

Reviews in Aquaculture 18(1) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/raq.70088

While the rapid growth in global aquaculture production has made the industry a success story in terms of providing nutritious food, it is often criticized for its limited socioeconomic effects. While there is a burgeoning literature investigating socioeconomic impacts, this is a difficult topic due to limited data availability. In this paper, we will review the socioeconomic impacts of the Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry using economic impact analysis, focusing on two impact measures: employment and value added. In contrast to earlier studies, we will cover the whole supply chain from input suppliers to sales rather than focusing on one part of the chain and accounting for ripple effects in several rounds. This is highly important as there, in 2022, were 11,175 direct jobs in production, 8500 jobs in additional core activities related to processing and sales, and 38,000 jobs with different suppliers and service providers, for a total of 57,800 jobs in the industry. The production activities are highly dispersed geographically and mostly conducted in coastal communities. While this is also true for some types of services, the employment in the industry becomes more concentrated and moves toward larger communities and cities as one moves downstream or away from the core activities.

Marine Resource Economics 40(2) p. 141-170 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/734322

Global seafood production and markets have changed fundamentally since the 1970s. The main catalyst for this change is that landings from fisheries flattened out as most fish stocks were fully exploited if not overfished. However, despite strong demand this has not led to steep price increases typically associated with scarcity. Seafood has never been more available largely because of rapid growth of aquaculture production and globalized markets that can move seafood from locations where natural endowments are suitable for production to the large population centers that constitute the main markets. Moreover, as aquaculture is farming, the industry in not resource constrained in a similar fashion as fisheries, and as most aquaculture production is relatively crude, there is also a tremendous scope for further productivity growth as more knowledge is transferred from the agro-sciences. One can accordingly expect global seafood production to continue to grow rapidly.

The Journal of Risk Education (JRE) 13(1) p. 27-37 Doi: https://jofriskeducation.org/index.php/jore/issue/view/17

Many students prefer to have a justification on their exam performance, beyond just publishing the grades. The main argument is increased student learning. In this paper, we discuss whether it is appropriate to provide the students with justification on their exam performance. The expected utility theory is used as the basis for the discussion. We show that giving the students feedback on their exam performance does not necessarily improve their learning. This may actually reduce student learning. The focus is on students in risk science education at University of Stavanger in Norway, but the discussion is to a large extent general.

Aquaculture Economics & Management 29(2) p. 136-158 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2024.2446143

Global Environmental Change 90 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102964

Aquatic food systems support global food and nutrition security, livelihoods, and economies, but put significant environmental pressure on the planet. The United States (U.S.) is the world’s fourth largest consumer and the largest importer of aquatic food, which makes it a good case for studying aquatic food systems. Here, we estimate the energy use, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) and blue water use by species, production method, product form, and stage of the U.S. supply chain, while accounting for trade and food loss and waste. We identified wide variation across species for energy use (40.2 to 259.1 MJ/kg), GHGe (3.7 to 22.2 kg CO2 eq/kg), and blue water use (15.8 to 1,851 l/kg). Capture fisheries and aquaculture on average used similar amounts of energy per unit of edible aquatic food; however, aquaculture emitted 54 % more GHGe and consumed 784 % more blue water than capture fisheries, due to the high GHGe and blue water intensity of aquaculture feed. Products with the lowest energy use were canned, fresh, and frozen sockeye salmon, frozen pollock, and frozen catfish. Products with the lowest GHGe were canned, fresh, and frozen sockeye salmon, frozen pollock, canned and frozen tuna, and frozen Atlantic salmon, All wild caught species had significantly lower blue water use impacts than farmed products. The production stage had the largest environmental impacts, but measuring production alone would miss 64 % of the energy, 36 % of the GHGe, and 21 % of the blue water used in the remainder of the supply chain. The processing stage was an important contributor to resource use for species with energy and water efficient production practices. Aquatic food in the U.S. supply is lost and wasted at an overall rate of 23 %; lost and wasted seafood contains 22 % to 24 % of the embodied energy, GHGe, and blue water in aquatic food systems. Compared to findings identified in the literature, aquatic foods in this study were lower in GHGe than beef, had a range of GHGe that extended above and below pork and poultry, and had higher GHGe than most legumes, and nuts. Estimating the environmental impacts and food loss and waste in the U.S. aquatic food system can help identify opportunities to enhance sustainability and resilience and support science communication about lower-impact foods and dietary patterns.

Aquaculture Economics & Management 29(2) p. 253-274 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2025.2453747

The consumption of aquatic foods in Europe is high. This strong seafood demand is currently being met not only through domestic aquaculture but also through imports. In recent decades, aquaculture has gained significant importance as a domestic source of seafood, primarily due to the dwindling availability of wild fish stocks and the escalating demand for seafood. This study investigates the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of 14 European aquaculture industries in 12 countries representing about 69% of total European aquaculture production using the Aquaculture Performance Indicators (API). We find that the average scores in Europe are higher than global average scores in all dimensions. While this should be expected in the environmental dimension given that European countries are developed economies with comprehensive environmental and food regulation in place, it is somewhat surprising in the other dimensions as the sector have been growing slowly compared to the rest of the world. However, it is growing and this is a signal of viable companies. It is also important to note that there are significant differences between industry segments. As expected, shellfish has the best scores in the environmental dimension, but the most important result is that all the sectors investigated score high relative to the global averages.

Ecological Economics 236 p. 1-8 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108683

It is well established in the literature that fish products with the ecolabel of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) obtain price premiums in food retailing compared to non-labeled substitutes. However, premiums vary substantially between species, with the expensive Atlantic cod commanding much higher MSC premiums than low-value species like Alaska pollock, indicating that the most affluent consumers care about sustainability. This study investigates differences in MSC premiums for haddock products of high and low value upstream in the supply chain. Findings show a substantial 14 % price premium for MSC-certified high-end loins and no premiums for lower-value products. Provided that the MSC-premium for high-quality products is shared with fishers, they may be tuned to engage in quality-enhancing fishing practices to land fish of the high quality required for high-end products. The resulting enhanced value creation from limited marine resources can be an added benefit of eco-labeling that goes beyond the certification standard, focusing on sustainable fishery management.

Aquaculture 609 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2025.742803

The salmon aquaculture industry lags behind more advanced food industries in several key areas. These range from lack of control in the production process, which limits optimization opportunities, to limited product development at the consumer end of the supply chain. While this poses challenges to the sector's competitiveness, it also presents opportunities for improvement. To exploit finer economic margins, both knowledge and sufficient control of the production process are essential. This paper investigates fine scale disaggregated data for the Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry. We show that the strong seasonality in the biomass and price is largely driven by seasonal variation in day-degrees, and that this seasonality changed significantly due to the biomass constraint introduced into the regulatory system. While production varies regionally, overall industry output appears to be highly market-oriented.

Aquaculture 596 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2024.741793

Ecological Economics 227 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108359

Managing pathogens is a challenge in biological production processes. To manage private risks and reduce ex ternalities, biological controls leverage the technology of natural ecosystems and are often considered envi ronmentally friendly alternatives to chemical controls. In salmon farming, parasitic sea lice reduce own-firm profitability by stressing fish and slowing growth and generate externalities by spreading to neighboring farms and threatening wild fish populations. Cleaner fish are a form of biological control based on ecological inter action that can be used instead of chemical control of sea lice, but little is known about their efficacy and value in commercial use. We estimate efficacy of cleaner fish using facility-level data. To identify exogenous variation in cleaner fish usage, we instrument site-level cleaner fish stocks using distance to cleaner fish farm with a com mercial license. Cleaner fish use significantly reduces likelihood of sea lice levels exceeding regulatory threshold levels. Combining efficacy estimates with cost data and a structural model, we provide estimates of cost effectiveness. Our results show that cleaner fish are privately cost-effective, which is consistent with high levels of adoption. However, cost-effectiveness also suggests that policy could encourage even more adoption of biological controls to reduce externalities.

npj Ocean Sustainability 4 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-025-00103-y

Traceability is critical for achieving seafood sustainability goals. However, trade restrictions highlight challenges for identifying basic information, including country of harvest. We use new seafood trade data to illustrate how trade can elude enforcement using the case of responses following Russian sanctions and quantify pathways through which the US imports Russian-harvested products. We then discuss the current policy landscape for enforcing trade restrictions and highlight priorities for improving seafood traceability.

Fish and Fisheries 26(3) p. 444-453 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12890

Management of fisheries is complex as it combines environmental, economic and social objectives. The relative importance of these objectives is highly debated and the best approaches to achieving good outcomes are unclear. A lack of global and multi-dimensional data has largely precluded reviews providing comparisons of performances across systems at a large scale. We review fisheries performance by analysing outcomes over 14 dimensions of environmental, economic and community performance using a unique global dataset for 145 fisheries collected with the Fishery Performance Indicators. The fisheries are ranked into three performance groups by an average of their environmental, economic and community scores: the 10% best fisheries, the 10% worst fisheries and the middle 80%. Furthermore, we investigate how four different types of management systems, catch shares, territorial use rights, limited entry and open access, are represented in the three performance groups. The best performing fisheries scored equally or better and the poorest performing fisheries scored equally or worse in environmental, economic and social dimensions. We found three different management systems to be represented among the best performing fisheries, indicating that no specific management system is best. Moreover, some management systems were represented in all three performance categories, indicating that fisheries characteristics or management designs are important elements of fishery performance. The worst performing fisheries were dominated by open access fisheries with no or very limited management.

Discover Education 3(1) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-024-00236-1

In this article, we analyze the relationship between class sizes and examination results in higher education. Data from the University of Stavanger, collected in the Common Student System (FS) in the period from 2011 to 2021, shows that there is a negative correlation between the number of students enrolled on courses and examination results. An increase in the number of students taking a course reduces the average scores. We also show that the difference in examination results for different class sizes decreases when the course level increases.

The World Economy 47(7) p. 2855-2870 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13565

This article investigates cross-market reallocation of trade to mitigate negative effects of large economic shocks. We propose a simple measure of trade reallocation and apply it to Norwegian exports during the great trade collapse following the financial crisis in 2008–2009. The results indicate statistically significant cross-market reallocation of trade away from markets hit hard by the crisis as measured by GDP/growth. Norwegian exports declined by 16.9% from 2008 and 2009. Without reallocation, the decline would have been between 1.6 and 3.8 percentage points greater. Successful reallocation at the firm level is done primarily along the intensive margin, by shifting physical products towards less affected markets within their pre-crisis trade networks.

Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture p. 1-14 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2024.2440712

In recent years, eco-certification has become an important market feature for aquaculture products, with several labels available for producers who want to signal sustainable or responsible production practices. In this study, the literature on the economic effects of eco-certification of aquaculture is reviewed to summarize the current state of knowledge and identify research gaps. The literature to date primarily focuses on Europe, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification scheme, and salmon products, but there are also insights into other markets and species. Consumer surveys indicate a preference for eco-labeled aquaculture products in most cases but with significant variation in the strength of the preference across markets and species. In addition, eco-labels for farmed products may decrease the preference gap often found between wild and farmed aquaculture for some species. Other factors like geographical origin influence perceived premiums more than eco-labeling. For producers, evidence of price premiums is inconclusive, suggesting non-monetary benefits like improved market access and production practices as motivators. Certification can be costly, particularly for smaller businesses and in developing countries.

The World Economy Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13661

This paper investigates the effect of the Brexit referendum on Norwegian firms' exports of fresh seafood to the United Kingdom. We exploit the referendum as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the effect of an uncertainty shock in trade on export values, volumes, and prices, as well as market entry and exit. First, we find that Norwegian firms experienced an average 2% decrease in total export value resulting from the referendum, suggesting a limited aggregate effect. Second, we examine the role of duration in firm-to-firm relationships in response to the shock, finding that more established relationships responded relatively more along the intensive margin to the shock. Third, the market dynamic post-referendum reveals a nuanced impact; while new market entries were limited, a slight increase in exit probabilities was observed. This reflects a strategic response by Norwegian exporters to the shock, particularly amongst firms with an established export history, indicating a reassessment of market presence. Overall, Norwegian exporters have demonstrated resilience and adaptability, effectively adjusting to the challenges of the Brexit referendum with minimal disruptions while maintaining their international trade relations amidst short-term uncertainties.

Resource and Energy Economics 77 p. 1-14 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2024.101438

Production licenses with use restrictions that limit output are commonly used to regulate biological production processes. Such regulations are vulnerable to rent formation and production distortions that can end up subsidizing harmful environmental behavior. This paper develops a partial equilibrium model for a biological production process and use the model to study the impact of production quotas in Norwegian salmon aquaculture. Results suggest substantial regulatory rents capitalized in license values. Production has intensified leading to excessive stocking of fish per license, a shorting of the production period, and smaller produced fish. Our findings provide important insights for quota policies in food production, especially for cases where quotas are motivated by harmful environmental effects.

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 224 p. 521-536 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.06.019

Marine Policy 161 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2024.106030

European Review of Agricultural Economics Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbae028

Agglomeration externality is a feature that has received limited attention in food production supply chains. Using highly disaggregated trade data, this paper investigates the presence of regional agglomeration effects in Norwegian seafood exports. Results indicate strong agglomeration effects in the exports of both farmed and harvested seafood at the region–product–destination level. Regional agglomeration of exporters affects the firms through different margins. In both industries, increased agglomeration results in larger volumes, while aquaculture exporters experience a small, negative, price effect. The largest firms, both in the number of employees and size of product portfolio, export most. We also document that agglomeration is important in explaining the creation of new regional product-destination-specific trade relationships, indicating the presence of regional spillover effects.

Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (JAAEA) 3(3) p. 478-490 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jaa2.123

This study investigates the role of starting prices in sequentially ascending (English) auctions. Applying binary logit and hedonic price models on a unique data set comprising 8217 auctioned lots of frozen saithe, an important species in Norwegian fisheries, we find support for three hypotheses; that low starting prices will lead to a higher share of successful auctions, a higher number of participating bidders, and higher final prices. These results indicate that starting prices in English auctions are important for both seller revenue and auction efficiency and are important with respect to strategic behavior in auction markets for food commodities.

Cleaner Environmental Systems 12 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cesys.2024.100166

Seasonality and within day variation are important characteristics of electricity supply/demand and for emissions from electricity generation. This paper investigates the social costs of using electricity at different times of the day, allowing for seasonal patterns and differences between weekdays and weekends in Sacramento, California in 2013 and 2019. The social costs of electricity use refer to a combination of the emission costs and the electricity price. Using simulations for the social costs of CO2, results show that the highest costs of using electricity occur at different hours across seasons on weekdays and weekends. As CO2 price increases, the social costs of electricity use become more volatile, but it becomes more pronounced that the low costs hours shift to daytime hours for most seasons in both years, except summer and spring 2019. This pattern helps evaluate the social impacts of using electricity and providing policy implications for electricity demand changes.

Marine Policy 167 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2024.106276

Nature Communications 15 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49556-8

Aquaculture is a rapidly growing food production technology, but there are significant concerns related to its environmental impact and adverse social effects. We examine aquaculture outcomes in a three pillars of sustainability framework by analyzing data collected using the Aquaculture Performance Indicators. Using this approach, comparable data has been collected for 57 aquaculture systems worldwide on 88 metrics that measure social, economic, or environmental outcomes. We first examine the relationships among the three pillars of sustainability and then analyze performance in the three pillars by technology and species. The results show that economic, social, and environmental outcomes are, on average, mutually reinforced in global aquaculture systems. However, the analysis also shows significant variation in the degree of sustainability in different aquaculture systems, and weak performance of some production systems in some dimensions provides opportunity for innovative policy measures and investment to further align sustainability objectives.

Marine Policy 169 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2024.106375

Aquaculture 582 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2023.740508

Product development is often an important component in increasing demand for successful aquaculture species. However, this topic has not received much attention due to limited data availability. In this paper, we investigate how the composition of salmon sales differ by product form by comparing the four largest European countries in terms of salmon consumption: France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. The composition of salmon products varies significantly across countries, with unprocessed products dominating in Spain and highly processed products being the most important in the United Kingdom. We also find a high degree of price transmission for the less processed consumer products in all markets, while the price transmission is zero for most highly processed products. This is important since it implies that the more processed consumer products are largely are insulated from the high price volatility of salmon at the producer level.

Aquaculture 581 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2023.740437

Production of a number of important aquaculture species is highly export oriented, and intermediaries play an important role in the supply chains facilitating the trade. This paper examines the role of intermediaries (e.g. trading companies) in Norwegian salmon exports. Using customs data for the period 2016–2019, we identify two groups of firms in Norwegian salmon exports according to their main economic activity: producers that also export their salmon and independent intermediaries. We show that although both groups of firms have established a global trade network, several interesting differences exists between the two groups. A relatively small number of producers take a significantly higher share of overall exports than a large number of intermediaries, as there is a large number of smaller companies in the second group. On average, producers supply more distant markets with larger volumes than intermediaries. Market concentration measures indicate that a high share of the exports is concentrated among the top exporters in both groups of firms. Interestingly, intermediaries are in many markets able to charge a price premium for several salmon products relatively to the producers.

Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2023.2225627

Marine Policy 147 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105361

Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

Aquaculture 577 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2023.739972

The largest companies in salmon aquaculture are rapidly getting bigger due to organic growth as well as mergers and acquisitions, and the largest are now multi-national companies. There are two main explanations for this growth: 1) An attempt to become large enough to exploit market power, or 2) Size is necessary to adopt new technologies that increase the efficient scale. In this paper, we investigate the degree of concentration in each of the main producer countries for Atlantic salmon, as well as globally for Atlantic salmon, all farmed salmon, and all salmon to account for the global nature of the market using Herfindahl-Hirschman Indexes. The results indicate a high degree of concentration in the smaller producer nations but not in Chile and Norway. Globally, the Atlantic salmon industry can be characterized as unconcentrated, and it becomes even more so when the supply of other farmed salmon and wild salmon is accounted for. Hence, the main motivation for the increased company size appears to be capacity to adopt new knowledge and technology.

Marine Policy 159 p. 1-9 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105921

While seafood is a highly traded commodity, lack of data has largely prevented examination of the firms and industries that are conducting the actual transactions. In this paper we use highly disaggregated data to provide an overview of the seafood exports from Norway, the world’s 2nd largest seafood exporting country, and a country where fisheries as well as aquaculture are important industries. The industry has a global reach with Norwegian seafood reaching 172 different countries in the period 2016–2020. While there are as many as 437 different exporting firms, this is relatively few firms compared to the 11,024 different buyers that import Norwegian seafood. There is significant heterogeneity in the export sector from very small firms handling only a few products to very large firms handling a large variety of products. The average firm is quite specialized and serves only 9 markets. However, there are also a handful of large exporters who ship products from all three main sectors in the Norwegian seafood industry to a large number of markets. The 10% largest companies make up 39% of the total export value and provide significant synergies between the aquaculture, pelagic and whitefish sectors.

Reviews in Aquaculture 15(2) p. 759-771 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/raq.12755

Global aquaculture production has grown very rapidly in recent decades. This is largely due to a number of innovations that has increased the control with the production process and competitiveness. These innovations come in a number of forms from radical new concepts to knowledge adaption from the terrestrial food production system. While there exist a number of studies investigating the impact of specific innovations, there are few studies that take a larger perspective on how innovations over time impacts an aquaculture industry or the innovation system that support these innovations. In this paper we review the innovation process in Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry from its infancy in 1970 until present. Of particular interest is the increasing complexity of the industry, and how most innovations are conducted by suppliers and not the aquaculture producers themselves. The insights are also of general interest in global aquaculture as salmon is among the species with the most advanced production technologies, but also a species where innovations are adapted to other species also in very different production systems.

The Journal of Risk Education (JRE) 12(1) p. 67-73

When teaching risk management, within the area of safety, the main focus is typically on safety management principles. The basis for these principles, and for traditional safety thinking, is the adoption of a cautionary mindset (cautionary principle), where attention is given to uncertainty, what could happen in the future and how to reduce or avoid possible consequences. In this paper, we point out the importance of also paying some attention to economic principles, to facilitate good resource utilization. Resources are in general scarce, and a stranger weight placed on the uncertainties than should be done from a traditional economic perspective may contribute to a sub-optimal use of resources. Even if the scope is limited only to risk management, negative impacts on safety may then occur. However, as the traditional economic perspective in some situations may also contribute to too little weight being placed on the uncertainties, we argue for the importance of integrating safety and economic perspectives when teaching safety risk management.

Aquaculture 572 p. 1-7 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2023.739520

Capture-based aquaculture (CBA) is an important branch of the aquaculture industry that differs from closed cycle farming in that the stocking material consists of captured wild fish or other aquatic organisms. By skipping the difficult early production stages of fish farming, producers can test whether assumed market advantages such as high quality and consistent supply result in higher prices – and whether these are high enough to incentivize further development of CBA and eventually close the production cycle. CBA-initiatives can also be supported by different policy measures to stimulate the activity. Since these measures involve costs, it is important to know at what level and for how long these measures should be implemented to promote economically sustainable CBA activities. We study CBA of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in Norway and find an average price premium of 26% compared to wild harvested cod, but with large interannual variation. However, declining quantities of cod from CBA following reductions in a quota bonus scheme to stimulate activity, indicates that the price premium is not sufficiently large to incentivize further development of the CBA branch of the Norwegian cod industry.

Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (JAAEA) 2(2) p. 295-305 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jaa2.58

Nature Food 4(12) p. 1058-1069 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00881-z

Preventive Veterinary Medicine 221 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2023.106062

Impacts of salmon lice is a major concern for a sustainable production of farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway. Most treatment methods for removal of salmon lice have associated increased mortality and decreased growth in a period after delousing, which affects the profitability of the farmer, and causes poor welfare and sustainability. In addition, the variance in mortality and growth, especially after non-medicinal treatment methods, is high, which makes it hard for a farmer to decide which control measure to apply to keep lice levels below the legal limit. In this study, we have applied a stochastic partial budget approach to assess the economic impact of reducing mortality and increasing growth of farmed Atlantic salmon by preventing, replacing and improving current delousing methods in Norway. We have simulated a production cycle of two different smolt-groups to find the outcome (harvested biomass, average end weight of the salmon, number of dead fish and feed consumption) of production cycles without or with two, three or four delousing treatments in the on-growing phase at sea. The results suggest that accounting for the biological losses associated with lice treatments is important when making choices of delousing strategies. The biological costs of increased mortality and decreased growth associated with especially non-medicinal treatments are expected to be high, but varies substantially. Therefore, the economic benefit of preventing or improving can also be high. The calculations imply that salmon producers could invest a considerable amount in measures for prevention or improvement of thermal treatments before break-even. For example could a farmer use on average 535,313 €/cage/ 1-yearling production in measure to prevent four thermal treatments before it is no longer economical beneficial. Depending on the performance of the four thermal treatments a farmer could use from 319,196–737,934 €/cage/ 1-yearling production on measures of improvement. Replacing one thermal treatment with another immediate treatment method has a minor economic benefit. The results further shows that sales value and feed consumption constitutes the largest share of the change in profit between different treatment regimes. The results from this study also show that not taking into account the risk of mortality and reduced growth associated with the different treatment methods of delousing, could lead to underestimating the benefit of improving, preventing and replacing treatments.

Ecological Economics 212 p. 1-10 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107940

There is strong evidence that ecolabeled seafood commands a price premium in the retail market in Northern European countries. At the same time, there is significant uncertainty as to whether these markups are passed on to the fishers. This is important because producer benefits are required for an ecolabel to provide incentives for sustainable fishery management and fishing practices. Therefore, we investigate whether fishers obtained price premiums for certified cod in Norway. A unique setting for this investigation was created when a part of the fishery, the one conducted within the Norwegian territorial waters, lost its certification by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), while it was maintained for the offshore part of the fishery. Using a difference-in-difference approach, analyzing a large and detailed dataset, we find that on average, there is no premium for certified cod, and that other factors are more important. When controlling for buyer types, the loss of the MSC certification resulted in a price reduction for cod sold to producers who make fillets for Northern European markets. However, we found no significant price effect for cod sold to the other buyer types. This highlights the difficulty of obtaining a price premium when there are alternative sources of the product.

The Scandinavian Journal of Economics 125(3) p. 789-820 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12526

Research on trade relationships has documented a high rate of relationship breakup and churning. We use data on Norwegian exports to document two stylized facts about the stability of trade relationships. First, the probability of relationship breakup increases in the deviation of the relationship-specific price from a reference price. Second, relationship hazards follow Zipf's law. We propose a search model with limited information and search frictions to explain these facts. Reference prices provide information on outside trade options that inform optimal breakups, leading to the first stylized fact. Strong heterogeneity in breakup frictions across relationships can explain the Zipf's law hazards.

Science 375(6579) p. 386-388 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abl4756

Environmental Research Letters 17(4) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac5b3e

The commons literature focuses heavily on rules and the behavior of resource users but places less emphasis on the returns to individual effort. However, for most resource settings, market conditions and associated resource prices are key drivers of exploitation effort. In a globalized world, import competition can strongly influence the incentives for individual resource users, a topic largely unexplored in the commons literature. Import competition is especially salient for seafood, one of the most internationally traded food groups. We analyze the US shrimp market, which was once dominated by domestic catches but is now mostly supplied by imports. For domestic producers (users of the commons), lower revenues result, while US consumers eat more shrimp at lower prices. Globalization changed the sources of price risk and compensation that domestic producers face and altered incentives to exploit the commons. In a market dominated by domestic supply shocks, the price response to a shock moderates the effect on revenue and effort. In a market dominated by imports, domestic shocks are buffered by import adjustments, while price movements are determined by global shocks. Despite losses for the domestic fishery, globalization creates new incentives to coordinate effort and capture price premiums determined in the global market.

Marine Policy 144 p. 1-9 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105223

Small-scale fisheries have received most of the attention in the literature investigating negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on seafood production. Larger fishing vessels are often perceived to be more resilient as they are better able to alter harvest patterns in response to supply shocks than smaller, less mobile vessels. In addition, larger fishing vessels often deliver storable frozen products contributing to resiliency. The supply and demand shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to test this hypothesis and is investigated here on the large-scale groundfish fleet in Norway. The results indicate that during the first two whole years of the pandemic the impact on price was small, but also that there were several secondary effects showing how negative shocks in some supply chains/markets are overcome.

American Journal of Agricultural Economics 104(1) p. 209-227 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12230

Many price indices are constructed using bilateral transaction prices. This paper shows how the time series behavior of cross-sectional price moments can reveal useful information about pricing behavior in bilateral transactions markets. Inference is formalized in a microlevel price determination model that allows for rigid pricing at the level of individual buyer/seller transactions as well as asymmetries in bargaining power. The model is used to estimate pricing rigidities in Norwegian salmon export transactions. Results suggest a high rate of price revisions and an informative salmon price index. The moments suggest price revisions are conducted at fixed time intervals consistent with optimal price revisions under costly information and that price revisions are more likely when transaction prices are below the reference price in the market.

Journal of Cleaner Production 376 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.134153

Fisheries and aquaculture are highly reliant on fossil fuels and must transition to renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions and meet global planetary heath goals. Here, we assessed total and renewable energy use in farmed catfish and wild-caught salmon, two of the largest seafood sectors in the United States (U.S.). Interviews were used to explore participants’ views of key barriers and opportunities to replace fossil fuel use. Modeled scenarios were used to assess changes in grid source energy and electricity costs for the farmed catfish sector using the U.S. EIA National Energy Modeling System. We found that renewable energy makes up 5% of direct energy use in catfish aquaculture in Mississippi and Alabama. Catfish industry interviewees indicate that cheap electricity costs and diurnal energy use are barriers to onsite implementation of renewables. Projected renewable energy use for the catfish sector could be as high as 41% of total direct energy use in 2050 under modeled scenarios, which would result in 86% lower CO2 emissions but 34% higher electricity costs. For wild-capture pink salmon from Prince William Sound, Alaska (AK) and sockeye salmon from Bristol Bay, AK, renewable energy makes up 2% and 0% of direct energy use, respectively. Wild-caught salmon industry interviewees identified the short duration of the fishing season as a barrier for onsite renewable energy, though there is a desire for more regional renewable energy technologies to lower electricity costs and increase reliability. Proposed renewable energy projects at utilities in fish processing towns in AK would only make modest improvements in the share of direct energy from renewables due to fuel use by fishing vessels. This is the first study to characterize current and potential renewable energy use among parts of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in the U.S. We found that energy needs for fisheries and aquaculture are influenced by their often-remote location, production methods, and seasonal energy demands, which require context-specific solutions. There is the need for federal and state policies and incentives to shift energy sources used in these sectors to meet national and international climate change goals while supporting food security.

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 16(2) p. 282-305 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/721055

Marine Policy 138 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.104978

Public regulation of a successful industry such as aquaculture needs to consider different concerns such as industry growth and development, but also environmental and societal sustainability. Governance systems are continuously challenged to respond in adequate manners to how aquaculture industry develops. This is especially noticeable when it comes to how environmental challenges are handled. In this article, we investigate three different environmental regulations, all which aim to promote the development of more environmentally friendly production technologies to curb the negative environmental impacts of salmon aquaculture. Based on earlier research, and an investigation of publicly available documents, we study the development processes and the ultimate design of the “green” licenses, the “development” licenses, and the “eco-technology” licenses. We find that the design of such licenses has changed considerable across the three schemes, but that the main contributions to regulation is to set the focus on environmental risks, and to give stimulus to technological innovation in fish farming. However, the side-effects are a large administrative burden and long-lasting award processes which at times have been characterized by lack of transparency and predictability.

Aquaculture 561 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2022.738678

A rapidly growing literature investigates how the recent Covid-19 pandemic has affected international seafood trade along multiple dimensions, creating opportunities as well as challenges. This suggests that many of the impacts of the Covid measures are subtle and require disaggregated data to allow the impacts in different supply chains to be teased out. In aggregate, Norwegian salmon exports have not been significantly impacted by Covid-related measures. Using firm-level data to all export destinations to examine the effects of lockdowns in different destination countries in 2020, we show that the Covid-related lockdown measures significantly impacted trade patterns for four product forms of salmon. The results also illustrate how the Covid measures create opportunities, as increased stringency of the measures increased trade for two of the product forms. We also find significant differences among firms' responses, with large firms with larger trade networks reacting more strongly to the Covid measures. The limited overall impacts and the significant dynamics at the firm level clearly show the resiliency of the salmon supply chains.

Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2022.2121601

Seasonality is a natural feature of wild caught fisheries that introduces variation in food supply, and which often is amplified by fisheries management systems. Seasonal timing of landings patterns and linkages to consumption patterns can have a potentially strong impact on income for coastal communities as well as import patterns. This study characterizes the relationship between seasonality in seafood production and consumption in the United States by analyzing monthly domestic fisheries landings and imports and retail sales of farmed and wild seafood from 2017 to 2019. Analyses were conducted for total seafood sales, by product form, by species group, and by region of the United States. The data reveal strong seasonal increases in consumption around December and March. Seasonal increases in consumption in Spring and Summer occurred in parallel with domestic fishing production. Domestic landings vary by region, but most regions have peak fishing seasons between May and October. Alaska has the largest commercial fishery in the United States and seasonal peaks in Alaska (July/August, February/March) strongly influence seasonality in national landings. Misalignment between domestic production and consumption in some seasons and species groups creates opportunities for imports to supplement demand and lost opportunities for domestic producers.

Marine Resource Economics 37(2) p. 221-233 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/718437

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 116(2) p. 415-425 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqac099

Background The 2020 US Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that the US population consume more seafood. Most analyses of seafood consumption ignore heterogeneity in consumption patterns by species, nutritional content, production methods, and price, which have implications for applying recommendations. Objectives We assessed seafood intake among adults by socioeconomic and demographic groups, as well as the cost of seafood at retail to identify affordable and nutritious options. Methods NHANES 2011–2018 dietary data (n = 17,559 total, n = 3285 eating seafood) were used to assess adult (≥20 y) intake of seafood in relation to income and race/ethnicity. Multivariable linear regression assessed the association between seafood consumption and income, adjusted for age, sex, and race/ethnicity, and the association between nutrients and seafood price, using Nielsen 2017–2019 retail sales data, adjusted for sales volume. Results Low-income groups consume slightly less seafood than high-income groups [low income: mean 120.2 (95% CI: 103.5, 137.2) g/wk; high income: 141.8 (119.1, 164.1) g/wk] but substantially less seafood that is high in long-chain n–3 (ω-3) PUFAs [lower income: 21.3 (17.3, 25.5) g/wk; higher income: 46.8 (35.4, 57.8) g/wk]. Intake rates, species, and production method choices varied by race/ethnicity groups and within race/ethnicity groups by income. Retail seafood as a whole costs more than other protein foods (e.g., meat, poultry, eggs, beans), and fresh seafood high in n–3 PUFAs costs more (P < 0.002) than fresh seafood low in n–3 PUFAs. Retail seafood is available in a wide range of price points and product forms, and some lower-cost fish and shellfish were high in n–3 PUFAs, calcium, iron, selenium, and vitamins B-12 and D. Conclusions New insights into the relation between seafood affordability and consumption patterns among income and ethnicity groups suggest that specific policies and interventions may be needed to enhance the consumption of seafood by different groups.

Marine Resource Economics 37(3) p. 235-262 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/719929

Aquatic Living Resources 35(15) p. 1-11 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1051/alr/2022017

A rapidly growing literature shows that COVID-19 and the measures to contain the spread of the virus can have significant market impacts for seafood. These can be interruptions of production, or reductions in demand directly or indirectly due to supply chain challenges. In this paper we investigate the potential impacts of COVID-19 on seafood exports from Norway, the world’s second largest seafood exporter, using highly detailed data from 2016 through May 2021. These data allow us to assess upstream impacts in the seafood supply chain close to the producer level in aggregate and by main sector, impacts on the largest products, and the extent to which export firm structure and export markets served have changed. We find very few impacts in aggregate as well as for individual products, suggesting that the markets and supply chains used by Norwegian seafood exports were sufficiently robust and flexible to accommodate the shocks created by COVID-19. Given Norway’s size as a seafood exporter, the impact of COVID-19 has likely been moderate upstreams for a number of seafood sectors around the world, especially those in wealthy nations, with opportunities balancing out challenges, and that the supply chains have been highly resilient.

Global Food Security 32 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2022.100620

Aquaculture Reports 24 p. 1-10 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aqrep.2022.101115

While highly successful in terms of profitable seafood production, salmon (Salmo salar) aquaculture may also be a source of potential negative environmental externalities. In an attempt to address these challenges through supporting the development of new technology, the Norwegian government has introduced a new class of aquaculture licenses labeled as development licenses. As a result, new technological solutions were proposed to reduce negative externalities through (1) expansion to open ocean areas not yet used for aquaculture and (2) reduced emissions from inshore production systems. This paper presents an analysis of the technological concepts proposed in applications for development licenses. The applications for development licenses provide a unique perspective on what technological directions existing marine aquaculture companies envisage that marine aquaculture may take in the future. The analysis indicates that units will become larger and stronger, as well as being specially designed to suit a variety of environments, creating a more heterogeneous industry. Large offshore structures such as semi-submersible platforms and other strong, rigid structures with permeable enclosures (nets) have been particularly successful in this application process, receiving relatively many development licenses. In sheltered fjord areas, many concepts involving closed enclosures (bags and tanks) have been suggested and awarded licenses.

Fish and Fisheries p. 899-909 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12660

Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/jafio-2022-0017

Seafood is the food group with the highest share traded, and the U.S. is the world’s largest seafood importer, importing 79% of the seafood consumed. Hence, a study examining the impacts of the measures to contain COVID-19 on U.S. seafood imports will not only show how U.S. seafood availability has been affected, but will also give strong indications of how resiliently the global seafood markets have worked through the pandemic. We find that U.S. imports of seafood actually increased in 2020 and 2021, suggesting supply chains were able to adapt to potential disruptions. Moreover, for the 14 largest product forms imported to the U.S., there are no strong price movements. Given that there is a global market for most species groups, this adaption also suggests that the markets have worked quite well beyond the U.S. Hence, while there have undoubtedly been market shocks associated with the COVID-19 measures such as the reduction in demand from the restaurant sector and the increased sales in the retail sector, opportunities seem to balance out challenges, and the supply chains for seafood to the U.S. have been highly resilient.

Aquaculture 552 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2022.737963

Compared to finfish and crustaceans, limited attention has been given to the economic modeling and production risk analysis of mollusk aquaculture. Given mollusk aquaculture's sensitivity to environmental factors, understanding production risk and its relationship to production technology and location is critical to firm viability. We modeled production as a function of random elements and performed stochastic risk analysis utilizing Monte Carlo simulation in conjunction with sensitivity analysis and scenario comparison. We applied these methods to compare different equipment systems and production strategies. This paper provides a framework for shellfish risk research that can be applied to various regions and species.

Economic Inquiry Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13067

Land Economics 97(2) p. 425-435 Doi: https://doi.org/10.3368/le.97.2.425

In salmon aquaculture, despite the industry’s substantial technologically driven growth over the last few decades, escapees together with diseases remain important environmental challenges influencing industry growth. This article investigates the incentives of salmon farmers to address the escapee challenge, as well as the impact of a regulatory change in 2006, accounting for the multi-output characteristic of the production technology. The results indicate that escapees do not have direct or indirect effects on the production costs of salmon even after the regulatory change in 2006. This suggests that the regulatory changes related to escapees did not cause distortions in the production technology.

Journal of International Food & Agribusiness Marketing 33(1) p. 53-68 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/08974438.2020.1860857

In recent years, the number of ecolabels and country-of-origin labels has grown substantially in seafood markets globally. This makes it more difficult for retailers and producers to communicate and demonstrate their differentiating claims to consumers. In addition, it has recently been suggested that there are both costs and supply chain benefits associated with labeling. This paper uses duration analysis to investigate factors that influence product longevity for salmon in grocery retailing. Product longevity influences cost as a prolonged product lifetime reduces costs related to product development and marketing. As has been found for wild-caught whitefish, different retail chains appear to vary in their product labeling strategies. However, in contrast to wild fish, farmed salmon with ecolabels or domestic country-of-origin labels appear to have shorter product life cycles compared to products without ecolabels or with foreign country-of-origin labeling. This is most likely due to the higher control of the production process found in aquaculture.

Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2021.1946481

Handbook of Production Economics (2021) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3450-3_41-1

Land Economics 97(3) p. 641-654 Doi: https://doi.org/10.3368/LE.97.3.641

Ecolabels are supposed to reduce the information asymmetry between producers and consumers, but they may also produce a warm glow of “green” behavior. We design discrete choice experiments to measure the relative importance of these motivations for choosing ecolabeled seafood products. We find that choice probability increases if the product carries an ecolabel, but the magnitude of this effect depends on the information provided about the sustainability of the product. Overall, we attribute 63% of the ecolabel’s original effect on choice probability to consumer demand for sustainable products, and a further 24% to warm glow.

Journal of Wine Economics 16(1) p. 68-85 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/jwe.2020.37

As for all traded products, aggregated wine imports build on numerous trades at the firm level. To ensure consumers access to a variety of wines with different qualities, importers need to connect to different wine exporters. Some of these relationships will last for a long time, while the duration of others may be short. In this article, we employ transaction-level data to analyze the duration of trade relationships in wine imports to Norway from 2004 to 2014. We find that most relationships are short-lived, as more than 75% of trade relationships end after less than two years. Furthermore, we find that higher-quality wines, as indicated by the import price, increase trade duration. Deeper firm-to-firm trade relationships for more exclusive wines are likely due to higher search costs for high-quality products. The results also show that the size of the initial trade between the partners, or degree of commitment, is a positive determinant for persistent relationships.

Global Food Security 28 p. 1-11 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2021.100494

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns are creating health and economic crises that threaten food and nutrition security. The seafood sector provides important sources of nutrition and employment, especially in low-income countries, and is highly globalized allowing shocks to propagate. We studied COVID-19-related disruptions, impacts, and responses to the seafood sector from January through May 2020, using a food system resilience ‘action cycle’ framework as a guide. We find that some supply chains, market segments, companies, small-scale actors and civil society have shown initial signs of greater resilience than others. COVID-19 has also highlighted the vulnerability of certain groups working in- or dependent on the seafood sector. We discuss early coping and adaptive responses combined with lessons from past shocks that could be considered when building resilience in the sector. We end with strategic research needs to support learning from COVID-19 impacts and responses.

Aquaculture 543 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2021.736918

Aquaculture governance can be challenging as a number of stakeholders have different objectives and visions for the industry. A license is an important tool in ensuring an orderly development of an industry, providing rights as well as obligations. However, the constraints imposed by a license can also prevent desirable activities. In the Norwegian aquaculture industry this has been addressed by creating special purpose license to promote some activities such as education and research, but which are operated in collaboration with commercial farms. While these licenses are not regarded as a part of the industry's regulatory system, the paper shows that that this can be a challenge as 17% of the current production capacity is in the form of special purpose licenses. This raises the questions of how well the special purpose license achieve their objectives or whether they undermine the regulatory system. This challenge is particularly pertinent in an industry with high profitability and strong barriers to further growth.

Agribusiness 37(4) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/agr.21704

In recent years trade with highly perishable agricultural products like fresh fish, berries, and cut flowers has increased substantially. The perishability of these products appears to challenge conventional wisdom when it comes to food trade, which emphasizes the importance of large shipments to reduce transportation costs. In this paper, gravity models and several margins of trade are estimated for the trade with fresh salmon, a highly perishable product. The results indicate that increased geographical distance have a larger negative effect than what is generally reported in the literature. Most interestingly, the number of exporters and the shipment frequency increase while there is little impact on shipment size when trade increase. Hence, freshness and possibly avoidance of losses by not selling products by the expiration date seem to be emphasized rather than economies of scale in transportation. [EconLit Citations: F14, Q22].

Marine Policy 135 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104829

Fossils fuel use is the main source of climate emissions in many fisheries and also one of the input factors with the highest cost share. This has led Norway to eliminate an implicit subsidy in the form of the fuel tax-exemption for the fishing fleet. It is suggested to gradually reduce the fuel tax-exemption over the years 2022–25 and simultaneously gradually introduce the CO2 tax. For a climate motivated tax policy to be successful from an environmental perspective, the tax must give vessels an incentive to utilize less fuel. However, it is unclear to what degree this is possible and therefore what effect a fuel tax will have. In this article, we investigate the economic impact of increasing fuel prices for the Norwegian fishing fleet. The most important result is a relatively inelastic fuel price elasticity for all vessel groups. This means that increases in fuel prices will result in only moderate changes in fishing practices and a small reduction in fuel consumption. Introducing a fuel tax will accordingly have a limited effect on climate gas emissions. Furthermore, we find that there are few possibilities for input factor substitution, which means that an increase in fuel price will lead to a direct cost effect for all vessel groups.

Ecological Economics 187 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107084

Ecological Economics 188 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107135

In recent years, several studies have identified price premiums for wild seafood certified as sustainably produced. Even though more than half of seafood for human consumption originates from aquaculture, not much attention has been given to consumer preferences for sustainability certified farmed fish, and to the implied price premiums for such products. This is the first paper to use market data to investigate the presence of price premiums in association with an ecolabel for farmed seafood, namely the label of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). Using hedonic price analysis, we look at premiums related to the three most consumed farmed whitefish species in Germany: rainbow trout, pangasius, and tilapia. Our results show that there exist price premiums for ASC-certified whitefish on the German market, which vary by species. Moreover, the magnitudes of the price premiums for ASC-certified products vary by retailer and brand and are negatively correlated with their price level.

Fish and Fisheries 23(1) p. 256-272 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12614

Market-based fisheries management systems give incentives to reduce the fleet size and employment, which increases earnings and contributes to resolve the tragedy of the commons. However, the often-stated expectation that economies of scale cause the disappearance of small-scale fishery is not observed in many cases. In this study, we investigate the effects on fleet structure in the period after introducing individual fishing quotas or individual fishing days with various degrees of transferability in selected fisheries in the seven Nordic countries. Despite observing economies of scale in most cases, it is found that the market-based fisheries management often does not reduce the small-scale fleet more than the fleet of large vessels. This is explained partly by small vessels targeting demersal species and large vessels pelagic species, and partly by the larger need of larger than small vessels to continuously utilize their capital stocks through fast adaptation to ensure return. A more important explanation is the regulation design, with limitations in sale of fishing rights and lease between vessel groups and regions and in the share of the total quota holdings of fishing rights by individuals and vessels. This is important for countries considering the introduction of market-based fisheries management, since the Nordic experiences show that with proper regulation design, economic gains can be achieved with small-scale fishing surviving even under economies of scale.

Global Food Security 28 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100476

Seafood is a highly traded commodity and 71% of the United States (U.S.) supply is imported. This study addresses questions about imported seafood safety and compares risks of outbreaks and recalls across countries of origin, species, and stages of the supply chain. We found that where seafood comes from does not play a major role in risk. Risk is a function of the activities happening at each stage of the supply chain, inherent riskiness of some products or processes, and “pass through” risks introduced at upstream and midstream stages of the supply chain. Dominant farmed species (shrimp, tilapia, catfish) became less risky as they move along the supply chain toward consumers. We recommend investments in agencies overseeing food safety and health, enhanced traceability within supply chains, and more open government datasets that support systems-level analyses.

Marine Policy Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104263

Marine Resource Economics 37(1) p. 53-63 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/716728

Individual fishing quotas give fishers incentives to reduce costs (or increase productivity), lengthen the harvest season and increase price by improving catch quality. To what extent each of these three effects will be present when the management system is changed in a specific fishery depends on the characteristics of the fishery and on the markets and supply chains served. This paper uses a difference-in-differences approach to investigate the impact on all three outcomes of a regulatory change that introduced individual fishing quotas with some transferability for a group of coastal vessels in the Norwegian whitefish fisheries. The results indicate higher ex-vessel prices after the regulatory change, which imply higher quality of the fish landed, but show no significant extension of the fishing season or reduction of the average cost.

Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2020.1782342

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 113 p. 1546-1555 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqaa437

Empirical Economics 61(1959–1983) p. 1-25 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-020-01923-2

Access to highly disaggregated trade data allows for a more nuanced investigation of different margins of trade, and the factors known to influence them. In this paper, the number of importers and shipments to each importer is investigated together with the more traditional margins. Potential explanatory factors of these trade margins are combined from three literature strands in addition to the standard gravity variables; firm productivity, per-unit shipment costs and country-specific trade costs. The empirical results show, not unexpectedly, that insights from all these different strands of literature influence trade margins significantly. In particular, the number of shipments per importer increases with distance, degree of remoteness and per-shipment cost, and the number of importers decreases with the distance, remoteness and per-unit shipping cost. This indicates that increased trade costs make exporters economize in existing networks. Finally, disaggregating the data into three main product categories using Rauch’s classification, trade patterns are shown to vary by product group.

Marine Policy 112:103776 p. 1-9 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103776

In several countries, maintaining the population of fisheries dependent communities are of major importance in the fisheries governance system. However, most studies investigating the relationship between fisheries and communities have a qualitative focus on the impact of fisheries policies on the communities. We have access to data on population and key employment indicators of every Norwegian municipality in addition to fisheries catch, landings and employment. These data allow us to study the effect of fisheries on population growth in fisheries dependent municipalities relative to all other municipalities. The data are analyzed using a multi-level approach integrating micro- and macrodata. The results indicate that general trends have a stronger influence on population growth than fisheries activities, implying that measures for increased fisheries landings are poor tools to support population growth.

Aquaculture 522 p. 1-11 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2020.735089

This paper investigates the development of production costs in aquaculture of Atlantic salmon between the five main producer countries. A unique data set allows us to analyse the development in the period 2003 to 2018. Costs have developed differently between countries, with Chile and the Faroe Islands standing out with strong and different changes. Chile sees a strong increase in cost and moves from being the lowest to the highest cost producer, and then to lowest again. The Faroe Islands has the opposite development and moves from being the highest to one of the lowest cost producers. For Norway and Canada the changes are considerably smaller, while Scotland has had the most marked cost increase. For the Faroe Islands and Chile, major disease outbreaks play a major role in explaining the change in cost. Differences between countries are also related to scale, natural conditions, currency development and regulations. Results show that Norway's position as the leading salmon producing country in terms of market share seems justified by its low production cost.

Marine Resource Economics 35(1) p. 83-96 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/707067

Seafood is the world’s most traded food product. In recent years, aquaculture has become an increasingly important part of seafood production, facilitating increased trade. However, despite evidence that fish farmers have better ability to target markets and ship their seafood through more efficient supply chains (due to the higher degree of control with the production process), little attention has been given to the fact that this is likely to influence trade patterns as well. This article investigates if trade margins for aquaculture products differ from trade in wild seafood products along three margins of trade, in addition to total export value on export data for Norway, the world’s second largest seafood exporting country. The results indicate aquaculture products are different. In particular, aquaculture products are influenced by more factors than fisheries products (such as transportation costs and per-unit shipment costs), highlighting another dimension where the control of the production process can be used to improve competitiveness. Moreover, exports of aquaculture products increase with a country’s wealth level, reflecting producers’ ability to target higher paying markets.

Marine Resource Economics 35(2) p. 97-112 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/708617

Marine Resource Economics 35(2) p. 159-176 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/708508

Marine Policy p. 1-9 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103876

Marine Resource Economics 35(4) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/710052

Journal of Invertebrate Pathology Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jip.2020.107397

Aquaculture 530 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2020.735801

Aquaculture 532 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2020.736034

Using a unique dataset, this paper investigates factors influencing production loss in Norwegian salmonid farming. The factors can be grouped into fish-specific factors (e.g. species, genetics, and generation), input factors (e.g. vaccines and smolt quality), environmental factors (e.g. geographical location), and managerial factors (e.g. ownership). The most important result is most likely that production losses to a large extent are explainable, as our best model has an R2 as high as 0.826. This implies that it is possibile to reduce production losses significantly. For the specific factors, vaccines reduce production loss, but their effect varies by production site. Production loss also varies with which smolt plant is providing juvenile fish, indicating that there is systematic quality variation among the providers of smolt. There is also significant variation in production loss between companies and production sites, and on average production losses are lower for larger companies and sea sites holding larger numbers of fish. An important point is that while some factors explaining production loss are controlled by the individual company, others are beyond their control. Some of these external factors are related to the regulatory system.

Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

Nutrients 12(6) Doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12061810

The aim of this study was to explore United States (U.S.) seafood consumption patterns, food sourcing, expenditures, and geography of consumption. We analyzed seafood intake and food sourcing using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cycles 2007–2008 to 2015–2016 for US adults ≥19 years old (n = 26,743 total respondents; n = 4957 respondents consumed seafood in the past 24 h). Seafood expenditures were extrapolated by combining NHANES with three other public datasets. U.S. adults consumed 63% of seafood (by weight) at home. The top sources of seafood (by weight) were food retail (56%), restaurants (31%), and caught by the respondent or someone they know (5%). Sixty-five percent of consumer expenditures for seafood were at restaurants and other “away from home” sources while 35% were at retail and other “at home” sources. Slightly less than half of overall U.S. food expenditures are “away from home,” which is much lower than for seafood, suggesting that consumers have very different spending habits for seafood than for an aggregate of all foods.

Environmental and Resource Economics 75(3) p. 631-655 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-020-00402-7

Fishers face multidimensional decisions: when to fish, what species to target, and how much gear to deploy. Most bioeconomic models assume single-species fisheries with perfectly elastic demand and focus on inter-seasonal dynamics. In real-world fisheries, vessels hold quotas for multiple species with heterogeneous biological and/or market conditions that vary intra-seasonally. We analyze within-season behavior in multispecies fisheries with individual fishing quotas, accounting for stock aggregations, capacity constraints, and downward-sloping demand. Numerical results demonstrate variation in harvest patterns. We specifically find: (1) harvests for species with downward-sloping demand tend to spread out; (2) spreading harvest of a high-value species can cause lower-value species to be harvested earlier in the season; and (3) harvest can be unresponsive or even respond negatively to biological aggregation when fishers balance incentives in multispecies settings. We test these using panel data from the Norwegian multispecies groundfish fishery and find evidence for all three. We extend the numerical model to account for transitions to management with individual fishing quotas in multispecies fisheries. We show that, under some circumstances, fishing seasons could contract or spread out.

Climatic Change 161 p. 591-599 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02755-w

Price volatility, an indicative measure of price uncertainty, is an important factor influencing fisheries cost, income, food security, and pressure on fish stocks. An increase in price volatility means that prices are varying more, making it more difficult to adjust the activities accordingly. This paper explores price volatility changes for the small pelagic fish—a key group for food security—related to the potential outcomes of climate change, such as tropical widening. With the tropicalization of temperate and polar marine ecosystems due to species composition changes, one would expect that overall price volatility for the small pelagics may be reduced over time because volatility in the tropical region is on average the lowest. However, we find an empirical evidence that price volatility for small pelagic species has increased relatively in the tropical and sub-polar regions beyond what can be explained by changes in landing levels and the variation in the landings.

Reliability Engineering & System Safety 198 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2020.106811

Reviews in Aquaculture p. 1-28 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/raq.12465

In contrast to the increasing aquaculture production of mussels worldwide, production in the European Union (EU) has shown a decreasing trend over the last two decades. Aquaculture production of mussels in the EU peaked in the late 1990s at more than 600 000 tonnes; by 2016, production volume had dropped by 20% to 480 000 tonnes. As mussel production represents more than ⅓ of EU aquaculture production, this decrease is an important contributor to the stagnation of EU aquaculture. Previous studies have suggested diseases, lack of mussel seed (spat), and low profitability as the main causes of the EU mussel production decrease. In this study, we investigate how economic and environmental factors have contributed. Moreover, we examine if the different mussel production techniques (raft, longline, on‐bottom, and ‘bouchot’) have been differently affected, by analysing the economic performance and cost structure evolution for the period 2010–2016. We complement these results with a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the EU mussel sector based on expert knowledge.

Global Environmental Change 60 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.102025

Sustainability certification has become an increasingly important feature in aquaculture production, leading to a multitude of schemes with various criteria. However, the large number of schemes and the complexity of the standards creates confusion with respect to which sustainability objectives are targeted. As a result, what is meant by ‘sustainability’ is unclear. In this paper, we examine the operationalisation of the concept from the vantage point of the certifying authorities, who devise standards and grant or withhold certification of compliance. We map the criteria of eight widely-used certification schemes using the four domains of the Wheel of Sustainability, a reference model designed to encompass a comprehensive understanding of sustainability. We show that, overall, the sustainability certifications have an overwhelming focus on environmental and governance indicators, and only display scattered attempts at addressing cultural and economic issues. The strong focus on governance indicators is, to a large degree, due to their role in implementing and legitimising the environmental indicators. The strong bias implies that these certification schemes predominantly focus on the environmental domain and do not address sustainability as a whole, nor do they complement each other. Sustainability is by definition and by necessity a comprehensive concept, but if the cultural and economic issues are to be addressed in aquaculture, the scope of certification schemes must be expanded. The Wheel of Sustainability can serve as a valid lexicon and asset to guide such efforts.

Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture 28(1) p. 107-116 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2019.1678111

Environmental and Resource Economics 75(1) p. 137-149 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-019-00391-2

Although fishing is regarded as a risky production process, limited attention has been given to the impact of input factor use on production risk. Production risk is particularly important for fisher behavior and fisheries management when input factors are restricted, since input restrictions can influence production risk in addition to output levels. This paper investigates production risk by estimating production and risk functions for the main vessel groups in the Norwegian fishing fleet. The results indicate that production risk is present and that the effect of input use on production risk varies between vessel groups. Capital has a risk-reducing effect in the ocean fleet, but are risk-increasing in coastal fisheries. Fuel use is found to be a risk-increasing input for most of the vessel groups, while labor use is risk-reducing.

Marine Policy 104 p. 19-28 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.02.045

Through its structural funds the European Union (EU) has invested €1.17 billion in the aquaculture sector over the period 2000–2014. In addition, the EU plans to spend a further €1.72 billion on the sector over the period 2014–2020 through the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). Despite this support, EU aquaculture production has not taken off. Indeed, EU production volume in 2016 was 8% less than in 2000, while global production increased by more than 150%. These investments aim to make the EU aquaculture sector more successful and competitive by focusing on quality, health and safety, as well as, eco-friendly production to provide consumers with high-quality, highly nutritional and trustworthy products. This study provides the first comprehensive overview on the allocation of the different structural funds in the aquaculture sector and across EU Member States from the year 2000–2020. The importance of these subsidies is put into perspective by comparing their evolution within and across the development of the different EU countries’ aquaculture sectors.

Aquaculture 512 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2019.734335

This paper evaluates the feed cost differences in salmon farming based on two energy dense feed strategies: one resembles the industrial preference of using high-fat diets (LP:low protein-to-lipid ratio) whereas in the other strategy the dietary energy is to a greater degree derived from protein (HP: high protein-to-lipid ratio). Two different economical models are presented based on three different feeding experiments: one commercial large scale and two small-scale trials. All trials were conducted with year old smolt (S1). Production costs have increased from 2009 to 2016, and the presented data depict a general increase in price of feed proteins and oils. Dietary proteins are more expensive than lipids and in isoenergetic diets, protein denser feeds are higher priced than the lipid dense alternative. HP diets lead to a higher feed deposition in carcass which results in a significantly lower feed conversion rate compared to the preferred isoenergetic LP commercial diets. Because of the improved feed-to-carcass conversion, the HP feed strategy yields a lower feed cost. In addition, the HP feed strategy induces faster growth that enables farmers to reduce the production cycle. A reduced production cycle represents an opportunity of reducing overall production costs. If improved growth is induced by dietary strategy, the reduction of overall costs should be assigned to the feed costs, i.e.a reduction of feed cost. Finally, dietary induced improvements in carcass weight yields more tradeable product which increases income. Thus, the present model system revealed that the traditional high-fatdiets preferred in the salmon industry, although they are cheaper than the isoenergetic proteinrich diets, are necessarily not precursors for overall lower feed costs.

Food Policy 88 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2019.101750

In recent years, eco-labeling has become an increasingly used tool to signal sustainable sourcing of (sea-) food. While the literature has focused on price premiums associated with the labels, it is noted in this paper that ecolabels can also contribute to profitability by reducing cost, e.g. through longer product lifespans. Hence, ecolabels can be beneficial in a supply chain even without a price premium. This study applies duration analysis to explore whether two eco-labels (the MSC label of the Marine Stewardship Council and a line-caught label) influence product longevity of whitefish products in eight different grocery retailers in the UK. The results show that MSC labeled products have a 64.7% lower risk of being withdrawn from the shelves compared to non-MSC products, while products with the line-caught label have a 32.8% lower risk of being withdrawn than products without this label. The results also indicate that the influence of the eco-labels on product longevity vary considerably between the retailers.

Applied Economics Letters 27(2) p. 145-149 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2019.1610702

While variation in unit value most commonly has been associated with quality in the trade literature, observed differences in prices between markets might also be explained by variation in market concentration and the degree of competition. Using transaction data on Norwegian exports of salmon, we introduce a Herfindahl index as a measure of competition in a standard gravity model. We find that competition typically is weaker in small and distant markets that due to high trade costs are served by relatively few firms. We argue that the anti-competitive impact of trade costs may explain price differentiation between markets even for homogeneous products.

Land Economics 95(2) p. 246-257 Doi: https://doi.org/10.3368/LE.95.2.246

A vast literature in fisheries economics focuses on drivers of fishers’ behavior with limited attention given to what happens once the fish are landed. This often strongly contrasts with a main policy focus on coastal communities, with fisheries management as an additional instrument in supporting livelihoods. This study shows that the number of Norwegian landing plants has been reduced in recent decades, and that quantity landed, annual plant operation time, and attracting smaller vessels decrease the probability of exit. Interestingly, plants in communities with additional landing locations have lower probabilities of exit, pointing to an industry cluster effect

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 115(44) p. 11221-11225 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807677115

Nature Sustainability 1(8) p. 392-398 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0115-z

International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management (IJTPM) 18(3) p. 234-246 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJTPM.2018.093852

Journal of Commodity Markets 12 p. 2-8 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomm.2017.12.004

Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine 26(83) p. 1-9 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-018-0548-4

Background: The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is preparing a new set of regulations that will cover working and resting periods for crew members engaged in emergency medical services with helicopters (HEMS) and aeroplanes (AEMS). Such a shared European regulatory framework has already been introduced for the majority of commercial operations with aeroplanes, whereas national regulations are still in place for helicopter operations. A possible consequence of changing the regulations on working and resting periods for helicopter operations is that current abilities to provide 24-h, continuous emergency readiness with the same helicopter crew will be changed to a daily shift pattern with two, and even up to three, different crews to cover one 24-h period. Methods: A cost-benefit study is used to analyse whether changed working and resting periods, through the introduction of a shared European framework are socio-economically profitable for Norwegian helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS). For the study, relevant data is available for the total of nine HEMS helicopters of the three regions in Norway, for the period 2006–2013. The aim of the study is to document whether changed working and resting periods will be socio-economically beneficial for the Norwegian HEMS. Results: The expected present value of changing the current regulations on working and resting periods is estimated at negative 181 million NOK over a 40-year period. This includes the assumption that all missions that are not completed today due to limitation in crew availability will be completed upon introducing new working and resting periods. In the current regulatory regime for the Norwegian HEMS, there are on average seven missions per HEMS base annually that are not completed due to the limitations in crew availability with the current working and resting periods. Changing the regulations on working and resting periods is estimated to be cost-effective when a minimum of 14 missions per year are prevented from being cancelled due to crew availability. Discussion: The benefit and cost elements used in the socio-economic analysis contain an estimated benefit of the measure, based on the valuation of life years gained for a limited number of patients. The prerequisites for life years gained, with the associated monetary value for quality-adjusted life years, are important for the outcome of the cost-benefit analysis. In this study 6.95 life years gained is used as basis for the benefit of the measure. This number is based on the conclusion of two studies, which have studied the benefits of HEMS helicopters staffed with a doctor in Norway. In a cost-benefit analyses, a quantification shall as far as possible be made in monetary values of all the positive and negative effects the measure entails. In this analysis, one criticism may be that these effects are relatively few, theinvestment costs (the increased operating costs) are not provided a detailed description of, and other factors such as; effect on the environment, risk of simultaneous requirements of the HEMS helicopter with possible negative effect for the patient who most needs it, likelihood of accidents with associated negative effect are neither included in the cost-benefit analysis. Conclusion: Alternations to the working and resting periods for Norwegian HEMS operations that will result in a change from the current 24-h, continuous emergency readiness with the same crew, to a set-up with two, and up to three, different crews are not found to be socio-economically beneficial.

Aquaculture 493 p. 446-455 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2016.10.031

The supply chain for salmon is, in many respects, the world's most efficient seafood supply chain. Adopting new technologies and expanding the scale of production have improved competitiveness leading to increased production and industry growth. The transfer of knowledge and processes from other food producing industries has facilitated growth in salmon aquaculture in particular, and in aquaculture in general. As such, the maturity of the salmon industry relative to other food producing industries can provide indications of further growth potential. We argue that the salmon industry still has much to learn from similar processes in other food-growing industries. Notably, the production and processing of poultry has experienced significant increases since the 1940s, becoming the fastest growing and most rapidly changing highly-intensive livestock farming segment, with often fully-automated processing environments. Although farmed salmon has a production history closely following that of poultry, it remains semi-automated with less control over production processes and a more limited product specter than poultry. While this gives important avenues of growth for salmon, it holds even more potential for other aquaculture species with even less control over the production processes and supply chain.Statement of relevanceInnovations leading to productivity growth and improved competitiveness throughout the supply chain have been key to the development of successful aquaculture industries. To a large extent, innovations have built on knowledge from the agrosciences. In this paper we compare the development of salmon aquaculture, one of the most sophisticated aquaculture industries with chicken, one of the most sophisticated terrestrial animal production industries. This sheds new light on the development of salmon aquaculture and it show that there is s large knowledge potential still to be tapped form chicken production, giving substantial promise of further development.

Marine Policy 93 p. 186-194 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2018.04.003

Applied Economics 50(56) p. 6112-6127 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2018.1489502

The main focus in the inefficiency literature is on suboptimal input use and how this causes increased costs, due to technical and allocative inefficiency. Production or cost functions are then typically used to describe the underlying technology of the firm. The possible revenue loss, due to lower than maximum production levels and suboptimal output mix, has received substantially less attention. By using a revenue function to measure inefficiency, the focus, model and estimation technique presented in this article differ from those of previous studies. A shadow revenue model is used to decompose revenue inefficiency into its technical and allocative components, in which the allocative inefficiency is due to a suboptimal output mix. The approach is illustrated using panel data of Norwegian whitefish trawlers. The results reveal large inefficiencies, with respect to output levels as well as output mix, indicating that this can be an important part of the picture when investigating economic inefficiency. To identify the determinants of revenue inefficiency, we conduct a second-step regression, in which technical and allocative inefficiency is regressed upon a set of explanatory variables. The inefficiencies are partly explained by the management system and fleet structure.

Reliability Engineering & System Safety 174 p. 108-113 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2018.02.011

Sustainability 10(5) Doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051522

In attempts to differentiate their store imagery, grocery retailers frequently introduce new products, which are often rich in extrinsic attributes such as claims regarding healthiness and environmental sustainability. This paper explores retailers’ pricing strategies for product attributes of haddock in the United Kingdom. The results show that retailers’ pricing strategies vary, in particular for extrinsic product attributes such as eco-labels and country-of-origin. The high price premium generated from the most advocated eco-labels and an emphasis upon promotion strategies appear to play a role in the success of high-end retailers, and may have implications for any heightened competitive responses by larger retail chains in the future.

Journal of Commodity Markets 12 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomm.2017.12.002

In recent years, trade dynamics have been receiving increased attention, and the general literature indicates that commodities are different. In this paper, the duration of trade relationships for Norwegian export firms to various markets is investigated for six product forms of one commodity, cod. The results indicate that the duration of most trade relationships is very short, and shorter than what is normally reported in the literature. Still, the substantial variation in duration by product form and factors influencing it, indicates heterogeneous dynamics for each supply chain even for slight differences in the characteristics of a commodity. Moreover, the short duration of trade relationships in the supply chains for Norwegian cod indicates that they remain very traditional food supply chains, with few attempts at reducing transaction costs through vertical coordination or relationships.

Food Policy 76 p. 1-7 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.02.002

Energy Economics 69 p. 196-203 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2017.11.011

Marine Policy 88 p. 58-63 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.11.005

Abstract In Norway, the rationale for fleet adaptations has been subject to different interpretations and policies. While coastal settlement, a surplus fishing capacity and a negative resource rent were dominant adaptations until the end of the 1980's, market orientation and economic efficiency have gradually become the most central fisheries political goals. However, the rate of market-based transactions have affected the fleet structure, the distribution- and ownership of quota rights in a manner that challenge the legitimacy of the quota regime. Today, the ownership of the fish resources, a future resource tax and the legal status of being a fisherman are high on the political agenda.

Ocean and Coastal Management 165 p. 9-14 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2018.08.008

Marine Resource Economics 34(1) p. 23-38 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/701195

Aquaculture Economics & Management 22(3) p. 306-317 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2018.1385659

The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Security in Business p. 434-440

Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 50(2) p. 255-269 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/aae.2017.33

Several studies indicate an integrated global market for salmon. However, there is increasing evidence of market segmentation for various seafood species. A disease crisis in Chile that reduced production by two-thirds provides a strong market shock that can shed light on how strongly integrated the salmon market is. Our results indicate that Chilean producers changed the product mix and export markets as a result of the disease shock. Yet, the relative prices remained constant, indicating a high degree of market integration. Moreover, Chilean prices are endogenous to the Norwegian price, indicating that prices are determined at the global market.

International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management (IJBCRM)

American Journal of Agricultural Economics 99(5) p. 1246-1264 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aax048

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 114(7) p. 1512-1517 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617948114

Coastal hypoxia (dissolved oxygen ≤ 2 mg/L) is a growing problem worldwide that threatens marine ecosystem services, but little is known about economic effects on fisheries. Here, we provide evidence that hypoxia causes economic impacts on a major fishery. Ecological studies of hypoxia and marine fauna suggest multiple mechanisms through which hypoxia can skew a population’s size distribution toward smaller individuals. These mechanisms produce sharp predictions about changes in seafood markets. Hypoxia is hypothesized to decrease the quantity of large shrimp relative to small shrimp and increase the price of large shrimp relative to small shrimp. We test these hypotheses using time series of size-based prices. Naive quantity-based models using treatment/control comparisons in hypoxic and nonhypoxic areas produce null results, but we find strong evidence of the hypothesized effects in the relative prices: Hypoxia increases the relative price of large shrimp compared with small shrimp. The effects of fuel prices provide supporting evidence. Empirical models of fishing effort and bioeconomic simulations explain why quantifying effects of hypoxia on fisheries using quantity data has been inconclusive. Specifically, spatial-dynamic feedbacks across the natural system (the fish stock) and human system (the mobile fishing fleet) confound “treated” and “control” areas. Consequently, analyses of price data, which rely on a market counterfactual, are able to reveal effects of the ecological disturbance that are obscured in quantity data. Our results are an important step toward quantifying the economic value of reduced upstream nutrient loading in the Mississippi Basin and are broadly applicable to other coupled human-natural systems.

International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management (IJBCRM) 7(3) p. 233-243 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBCRM.2017.088810

IAEE International Conference

Ecological Economics 142 p. 113-119 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.005

Energy Journal 38(2) p. 131-148 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5547/01956574.38.2.fasc

Aquaculture Economics & Management 22(1) p. 131-149 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2017.1284943

Marine Resource Economics 32(3) p. 329-349 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/691981

Diseases are an important challenge in aquaculture. However, most of what is known about the effect of diseases comes from laboratory experiments. Using a farm-level data set containing sea lice infestation counts for all Norwegian salmon farms over an 84-month period, we empirically investigate the biological and economic impacts of observed levels of infective lice. Sea lice, a common ectoparasitic copepod of salmonids, have been shown to reduce fish growth and appetite and cause substantial costs to salmon farmers worldwide. Our results suggest that the percent of total biomass growth lost per production cycle due to average infestations varies from 3.62 to 16.55%, despite control, and depends on farm location. Using a discrete harvesting model, we simulate the economic impact on farm profits over typical cycles. An average infestation over a typical central region spring-release cycle generates damages of US$0.46 per kg of harvested biomass, equivalent to 9% of farm revenues. We estimate that lice parasitism produced US$436m in damages to the Norwegian industry in 2011.

Aquaculture Economics & Management 21(1) p. 1-8 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2016.1272649

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 61(4) p. 576-589 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8489.12217

Aquaculture Economics & Management 20(4) p. 342-356 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2016.1212126

Aquaculture Economics & Management 20(3) p. 312-323 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2016.1177862

Cogent Economics & Finance 4(1) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2016.1264538

This study presents a novel approach to selecting comparable companies in equity valuation. While valuation multiples is probably the most common valuation method in practice, discounted cash flow and residual income valuation models are advocated by academics. A key aspect in valuation by multiples is peer group selection. In this paper, we examine the usefulness of econometric techniques in peer-group selection for the largest companies in the international oil and gas sector. Using Chow tests, we are able to identify firms with similar relationships between valuation multiples and relevant value drivers. These results of our study suggest that analysts and investors should, when carrying out valuations, be careful in selecting the companies that comprise the peer groups. Comparable company selection could be carried out using econometric techniques that select companies on the basis of similarities in the relation between financial information and market valuation, instead of being based purely on analysts’ subjective judgments.

Aquaculture Economics & Management 20(2) p. 222-234 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2016.1156192

Empirical Economics 51(4) p. 1465-1479 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-015-1060-6

Productivity and Efficiency Analysis p. 51-70 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23228-7_3

Aquaculture Economics & Management 20(4) p. 368-381 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2016.1212123

This article examines the hedging properties of Atlantic salmon futures. Hedging is important because it allows for mitigation of the risk of adverse price changes in the spot market. We examine the hedging efficiency of three types of hedging strategies; unhedged, fully hedged and hedging using optimal hedging ratios. To find the optimal hedge ratio we use an estimated constant hedge ratio, optimal hedge ratios estimated with rolling 20-week and 52-week windows, and bivariate GARCH models. The results provide evidence that hedging using futures contracts listed on Fish Pool reduces risk for producers of farmed Atlantic salmon. The best hedging efficiency is achieved with a simple one-to-one hedge, closely followed by the bivariate GARCH approach.

Journal of Commodity Markets 2(1) p. 6-17 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomm.2016.07.001

Aquaculture Research 47(12) p. 3852-3866 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/are.12836

Journal of Commodity Markets 1(1) p. 35-47 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomm.2015.11.001

Regional studies 50(10) p. 1742-1754 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2015.1055460

Marine Policy 69 p. 194-201 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2015.06.021

Aquaculture Economics & Management 20(4) p. 357-367 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2016.1212124

Marine Policy 63 p. 1-7 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2015.09.017

In the post-war political landscape in Norway, it has been a rooted consensus to maintain the coastal fleet as the largest and most important segment of the Norwegian fishing fleet. The simple and open technology, and low entrance costs in the coastal fisheries have secured employment in fisheries dependent districts, especially in Northern Norway. In order to protect the coastal fleet from the deep-sea fleet, the regime fixed the resource allocation and secured the coastal vessels with the largest share of the national TAC for cod. However, despite the strong institutionalization of the coastal fleet, the regime has not managed to avoid a rapid growth of deep-sea vessels and reallocation of quotas within the coastal group.

Journal of Agricultural Economics (JAE) 67(1) p. 231-244 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.12138

Journal of futures markets 35(7) p. 679-694 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/fut.21679

International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management (IJBCRM) 6(1) p. 59-67 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBCRM.2015.070353

Aquaculture Economics & Management 19(3) p. 316-335 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2015.1057879

Aquaculture Economics & Management 19(3) p. 301-315 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2015.1057880

Aquaculture Economics & Management 19(3) p. 336-352 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2015.1057878

PLOS ONE 10(5) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122809

Pursuit of the triple bottom line of economic, community and ecological sustainability has in- creased the complexity of fishery management; fisheries assessments require new types of data and analysis to guide science-based policy in addition to traditional biological informa- tion and modeling. We introduce the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs), a broadly applicable and flexible tool for assessing performance in individual fisheries, and for estab- lishing cross-sectional links between enabling conditions, management strategies and triple bottom line outcomes. Conceptually separating measures of performance, the FPIs use 68 individual outcome metrics — coded on a 1 to 5 scale based on expert assessment to facili- tate application to data poor fisheries and sectors — that can be partitioned into sector- based or triple-bottom-line sustainability-based interpretative indicators. Variation among outcomes is explained with 54 similarly structured metrics of inputs, management ap- proaches and enabling conditions. Using 61 initial fishery case studies drawn from industrial and developing countries around the world, we demonstrate the inferential importance of tracking economic and community outcomes, in addition to resource status.

ICES Journal of Marine Science 72(3) p. 733-740 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsu208

Food Policy 53 p. 82-93 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2015.04.004

Eco-labels are important features of many natural resource and food markets. They certify that a product has some desirable unobserved quality, typically related to a public good such as being sustainably produced. Two issues that have received limited attention are whether pricing varies across different eco-labels that may compete with each other and to what extent different retailers charge different prices. Using a unique data set of salmon prices in eight different United Kingdom retail chains, we investigate these issues by estimating a price-attribute model that includes two eco-labels and one country-of-origin label. Results show substantial variation in the prices of the different eco-labels and that eco-label premiums vary across retail chains. Specifically, salmon certified with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label has a high premium in low-end retail chains but no statistically significant premium in the high-end chains. These findings question the ability of the MSC label to transmit consumer willingness-to-pay for public goods through the supply chain to incentivize sustainable management. In contrast, premiums for organic certification are similar in magnitude across retailer types. In general, failure to account for retailer heterogeneity will over- or under-estimate a label’s premium.

World Development 67 p. 151-160 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.10.013

Salmon: biology, ecological impacts and eonomic importance p. 307-326

This review is on the development of the salmon aquaculture industry, with an emphasis on the production process, global and local environmental issues associated with farming and economic implications. Production of salmon increased from a few thousand tonnes in the early 1980s to almost 2.5 million tonnes in 2012. Salmon aquaculture is by many considered a sucessess story, and many look to this species for lessons of interest for the development of other farmed species

Tourism Economics 20(3) p. 579-594 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5367/te.2013.0291

IAEE International Conference

Proceedings, 14th IAEE European Conference 2014, Rome, October 28-31.

Marine Policy 44 p. 166-171 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2013.08.018

International Journal of Trade and Global Markets 7(4) p. 300-315 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJTGM.2014.067260

Aquaculture Economics & Management 18(2) p. 205-219 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2014.903309

Marine Resource Economics 29(4) p. 301-304 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/678924

Encyclopedia of Natural Resources p. 791-797 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ENRW-120047462

Ecological Applications 24(1) p. 15-23 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1890/13-0085.1

Marine Resource Economics 29(2) p. 111-131 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/676826

Aquaculture Economics & Management 18(2) p. 97-100 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2014.903659

Energy Economics 42 p. 1-8 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2013.11.012

Journal of Productivity Analysis 40(3) p. 307-321 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11123-012-0336-5

Aquaculture Economics & Management 17(3) p. 300-321 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2013.812154

Samfunnsøkonomen p. 82-91

IAEE International Conference

Aquaculture Economics & Management 17(3) p. 322-339 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2013.812156

IAEE International Conference

IAEE International Conference

Energy Economics 38 p. 212-217 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2013.02.010

Safety Science 59 p. 173-178 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2013.05.011

Agricultural and Resource Economics Review (ARER) 42(3) p. 453-470 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1068280500004937

Marine Policy 38 p. 369-374 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2012.06.015

Aquaculture 396-399(1) p. 43-50 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2013.02.015

Journal of Fish Diseases 36(3) p. 171-194 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/jfd.12061

Salmon lice, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, are naturally occurring parasites of salmon in sea water. Intensive salmon farming provides better conditions for parasite growth and transmission compared with natural conditions, creating problems for both the salmon farming industry and, under certain conditions, wild salmonids. Salmon lice originating from farms negatively impact wild stocks of salmonids, although the extent of the impact is a matter of debate. Estimates from Ireland and Norway indicate an odds ratio of 1.1:1-1.2:1 for sea lice treated Atlantic salmon smolt to survive sea migration compared to untreated smolts. This is considered to have a moderate population regulatory effect. The development of resistance against drugs most commonly used to treat salmon lice is a serious concern for both wild and farmed fish. Several large initiatives have been taken to encourage the development of new strategies, such as vaccines and novel drugs, for the treatment or removal of salmon lice from farmed fish. The newly sequenced salmon louse genome will be an important tool in this work. The use of cleaner fish has emerged as a robust method for controlling salmon lice, and aquaculture production of wrasse is important towards this aim. Salmon lice have large economic consequences for the salmon industry, both as direct costs for the prevention and treatment, but also indirectly through negative public opinion.

Journal of Agricultural Economics (JAE) 64(1) p. 97-111 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-9552.2012.00357.x

Marine Policy 36(2) p. 365-369 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2011.07.005

11th International Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management Conference and the Annual European Safety and Reliability Conference 2012, 25-29 June 2012, Helsinki, Finland p. 4455-4460 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2018.02.011

Agricultural Economics 43(1) p. 115-123 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-0862.2011.00569.x

PLOS ONE 7(5) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036731

Energy Policy 47 p. 117-124 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.04.033

Magma forskning og viten 15(1) p. 23-31

IAEE International Conference

Proceedings IAEE European Conference Venice 9-12 september 2012

Marine Resource Economics 27(2) p. 181-192 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5950/0738-1360-27.2.181

IAEE International Conference

Proceedings IAEE European Conference Venice 9-12 september 2012

Advances in Production Management Systems. Value Networks: Innovation, Technologies, and Management p. 620-627 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657309909380230

Advances in Production Management Systems. Value Networks: Innovation, Technologies, and Management p. 611-619 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33980-6_65

Journal of Agricultural Economics (JAE) 62(3) p. 655-668 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-9552.2011.00299.x

Reviews in fisheries science 19(3) p. 257-278 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10641262.2011.597890

The Business Review, Cambridge 19(1) p. 70-76

Wiley-Blackwell

IAEE International Conference Sesjon 23

Reliability Engineering & System Safety 96(3) p. 361-364 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2010.10.004

This paper focuses on how access to an insurance market should influence investments in safety measures in accordance with the ruling paradigm for decision-making under uncertainty—the expected utility theory. We show that access to an insurance market in most situations will influence investments in safety measures. For an expected utility maximizer, an overinvestment in safety measures is likely if access to an insurance market is ignored, while an underinvestment in safety measures is likely if insurance is purchased without paying attention to the possibility for reducing the probability and/or consequences of an accidental event by safety measures.

Samfunnsøkonomen 125(65)(5) p. 14-21

Advances in production management systems : value networks : innovatio n,technologies and management

Advances in production management systems : value networks : innovatio n,technologies and management

Marine Resource Economics 26(2) p. 141-150 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5950/0738-1360-26.2.141

Aquaculture Economics & Management 15(1) p. 1-17 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2011.549408

Marine Resource Economics 26(4) p. 255-265 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5950/0738-1360-26.4.255

Risks challenging publics, scientists and governments p. 49-56

Science 330(6007) p. 1052-1053 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1197769

Handbook of marine fisheries conservation and management p. 60-71

Handbook of marine fisheries conservation and management p. 113-122

Science 327(5967) p. 784-786 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1185345

IAEE International Conference

Marine Resource Economics 25(1) p. 61-76

Aquaculture is a controversial issue in the U.S.A., and to what extent US. aquaculture stakeholders support its expansion determines the future of this industry. This paper compares the perceptional differences of aquaculture stakeholders in the U.S.A. and Norway, and investigates how their perceptions influence their decisions to support aquaculture development. Original data were collected from an online survey of key aquaculture stakeholders and experts in both countries. Based on multinomial logit models, all of the perception variables contribute significantly to the likelihood that an aquaculture stakeholder is willing to support aquaculture expansion. These findings provide useful information for US. and Norwegian aquaculture policymakers, regulators, and stakeholders regarding how perceptions influence decisions; the key perceptional differences between the U.S.A. and Norway; and how policies, practices, and education could change perceptions of aquaculture stakeholders and thereby the future of U.S. and Norwegian aquaculture.

Safety Science 48(10) p. 1279-1285 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2010.04.006

In a risky process there are three alternative ways to treat the negative consequences of the risk or the accident. We can: (1) take all the consequences when an accidental event occurs, (2) reduce the probability and/or the consequences of an accidental event by safety measures or (3) transfer the consequences of the occurrence to parties better able to carry them (i.e. buying insurance). In safety management a prevailing practice is that access to an insurance market does not affect the investment in safety measures. In this paper we discuss what the consequences are of this common practice in relation to insurance and mandatory safety requirements. We conclude that an overinvestment in safety measures is very likely if insurance is not taken into account. Moreover, mandatory safety measures and insurance can lead to both over- and underinvestment in safety measures. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Acta Agriculturæ Scandinavica C - Food Economics 7(1) p. 36-43 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/16507541.2010.531200

Recently, there have been concerns in the USA that harvest of swordfish is harmful or the stocks are poorly managed. This has led to several campaigns targeting swordfish in general as well as swordfish from specific source. The effect of campaigns and regulatory measures against specific sources depend on the demand structure. In this paper, the Generalized Composite Commodity Theorem (GCCT) is applied to test whether imports of swordfish can be treated as a separate group. US import demand for swordfish is then estimated using an Almost Ideal Demand System.

IAEE International Conference

Land Economics 85(2) p. 279-291

Traditional fisheries management schemes generate incentives for vessels to maximize catch, resulting in rent dissipation and overcapacity. individual vessel quota management schemes change the incentives to maximize profit and have the potential to generate resource rent and reduce capacity. An interesting question is whether it is the changed incentives due to individual quota or the capacity reduction due to transferability of individual quota that is most important in generating rent. In this study, a cost function approach is used to model and measure rent generated and potential rent in a fishery managed with individual vessel quotas. (JEL C30, Q22)

Marine Resource Economics 24(4) p. 405-411

Land Economics 85(1) p. 201-215

In industries where firms can adjust product mix in response to price changes, the process can be delayed by adjustment costs. An example is fishermen who change fishing grounds to target different species. If adjustment costs are sufficiently large, this may hamper the fishermen's response so that regulatory tools that are not efficient in the long run are useful in the short run. Moreover, adjustment costs can influence the choice of species targeted. In this paper dynamic supply equations are specified using a revenue function approach. Different hypotheses about the dynamics of the supply equations are tested for Norwegian trawlers. (JEL Q22, D21)

International Journal of Accounting 43(4) p. 398-424 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intacc.2008.09.007

Accounting literature suggests that contemporaneous earnings are more useful than current operating cash flow in predicting future cash flows and, therefore, also more relevant for company valuation. However, recent research indicates that elevated levels of merger and acquisition activity or a changing economic environment may reduce the value relevance of earnings. Using the oil and gas industry as a case, this paper examines how the oil industry upheaval in the late 1990s influenced the value relevance of financial statement information. We extend the literature by testing for a structural shift in the equity market valuation process. Our results provide evidence of a structural break in the value relevance of accounting information. In contrast to prior research, we find that the value relevance of cash flows actually decreased in the recent oil industry upheaval. On the other hand, the value relevance of book equity increased. Furthermore, we find that accounting-method choice (full cost versus successful efforts) affects the value relevance of accounting information.

Marine Resource Economics 23(4) p. 527-547

Applied Economics 40(13) p. 1745-1755 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00036840600905134

International fish trade is growing, and fish exports represent an important source of foreign currency for many countries. For a few countries the exports are also an essential part of the economy. We revisit the seminal paper of Richardson (1978) that addresses the issue of exchange rate pass-through in commodity markets, but in a multivariate cointegration framework. The multivariate cointegration framework allows us to test common assumptions like exchange rate pass-through, leading price, central markets, and exogeneity of exchange rates. This approach is particularly suited when studying markets for primary products. We provide empirical examples using salmon imports to Japan and fish meal exports from Peru to Germany.

Marine Resource Economics 23(2) p. 199-214

This paper investigates the competition between domestic catfish fillets and imported tilapia fillets in the US market. The market segmentation between fresh and frozen fillets of both species is also considered. The substitutability between catfish and tilapia is of interest because market reports have recently suggested that the rapid increase in tilapia imports in the last few years is the result of tilapia taking market share from domestically produced catfish. The competition between fresh and frozen fillets of catfish and tilapia imports in the same market is examined using market integration and demand analysis. The results indicate that imports of fresh and frozen tilapia fillets lie in different market segments, while fresh and frozen catfish fillets compete in the same market. Furthermore, fresh and frozen fillets of catfish and tilapia imports do not compete in the same market.

Energy Journal 29(3) p. 27-46

This paper analyzes the residential natural gas demand in 12 European countries using a dynamic demand model, which allows for country-specific short- and long-run elasticity estimates. The own-price and income elasticities tend to be very inelastic in the short run, albeit with much greater responsiveness in the longer run. Our results support very limited technological substitution possibilities between different energy carriers in the short run. Furthermore, the results suggested structural differences of residential natural gas demand across European countries and provide support for employing a heterogeneous estimator such as the shrinkage estimator.

Marine Policy 32(6) p. 920-927 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2008.01.007

Internationally, individual vessel quotas (IVQ) have become an increasingly popular management tool. The main attraction of IVQs is the incentives they create for cost savings, autonomous capacity adjustment and, subsequently, rent generation. In this paper, the extent to which different IVQ systems have facilitated resource rent generation and capacity adjustment in five European countries-Den mark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the UK-is examined. The potential economic rents and the capacity reduction necessary to achieve these rents in each of the fisheries are also estimated. Reasons wily IVQs have not achieved their potential economic benefits in these fisheries are also examined. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Marine Resource Economics 23(4) p. 395-400

Empirical Economics 35(2) p. 379-393 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-007-0163-0

It is well known that there are adjustment costs associated with many input factors, which delays firms response to changes in relative prices. Although adjustment costs are implicitly acknowledged when a cost rather than profit function is used, little attention has been given to adjustment costs for outputs. However, in many cases there will also be adjustment costs associated with changes in the product mix for multioutput firms. In this paper we formulate a firm's optimization problem in a profit maximizing set up that allows adjustment costs for all netputs from which it follows that adjustment cost for some factors affect the adjustment of both inputs and outputs. We also show that one can test whether a factor is quasi-fixed or fully fixed.

IAEE International Conference

Energy Policy 35(1) p. 467-474

IAEE International Conference

Universitetsforlaget

IAEE International Conference

IAEE International Conference

Journal of Agricultural Economics (JAE) 53(1) p. 101-107 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-9552.2002.tb00008.x

In this paper we note that when there is only one variable factor in the intermediaries' production technology, prices at different levels in the value chain will move proportionally to each other over time. This is also the only general condition under which the elasticity of price transmission is equal to one, so that retail price signals are perfectly transmitted to primary product producers and vice versa. This allows a test of whether derived demand elasticities contain information about consumer elasticities using only prices. An empirical illustration is provided using data from the Norwegian cod sector.

Marine Resource Economics 15(1) p. 67-71

Aquaculture Europe 2022 Conference and Exposition

Aquaculture 2022

Bergen Fisheries Economics Workshop 2022

Aquaculture Europe

Skretting Global fish quality meeting

Aquaculture Europe 2021

The Conversation

Aqua Nor 2021 scientific seminar

NORCE Research AS

This paper examines economic rent in Norwegian fisheries 1985–2014. While several earlier studies provide estimates of total economic rent, our paper investigates different components of rent. This is important as different types of rent may be permanent to varying degrees. Modern rent theory separates total economic rent into three main components, absolute (e.g. scarcity, regulation, resource rent), inframarginal and quasiprent. Using vessel data, we examine the composition of resource vs. inframarginal rent in the Norwegian fisheries sector. Our results suggest that the economic rent in Norwegian fisheries comes mainly in the form of inframarginal rent. This is in line with an increasing literature providing evidence that inframarginal rents are an important component of economic rent, and a category that is difficult to assess for valuation and tax purposes.

Samfunns- og næringslivsforskning (SNF)

Dette notatet undersøker økonomiske konsekvenser av økte drivstoffpriser for fem utvalgte grupper av den norske fiskeflåten; konvensjonelle kystfartøy i lukket gruppe, konvensjonelle havfartøy, trålere, kystnotfartøy i lukket gruppe og ringnotsnurpere. For å undersøke de økonomiske konsekvensene har det blitt estimert translog kostnadsfunksjoner, og elastisiteter har blitt beregnet. Resultatene viser at alle fartøygruppene har gjennomgående lav egenpriselastisitet for drivstoff. Dette innebærer at økninger i drivstoffprisene bare har mindre konsekvenser for drivstofforbruket, og derfor en betydelig direkte kostnadseffekt for alle fartøygruppene. Vi finner liten grad av substitusjonsmulighet mellom drivstoff og arbeidskraft og drivstoff og kapital. Disse resultatene indikerer at de forskjellige fartøygruppene i relativt begrenset grad kan tilpasse seg endringer i drivstoffprisene ved å endre driftsmønster. Trålerne er den mest drivstoffintensive fartøygruppen, og også den fartøygruppen hvor endringer i drivstoffprisen fører til den største endringen i totalkostnadene. Endrede drivstoffpriser gir også større endringer i totalkostnadene for de to andre typene havgåendefartøy, og for de to gruppene kystfartøy. Resultatene avdekker også at økt fangstvolum per fartøy, vil gi økt utnyttelse av drivstoffet. Dette innebærer at fartøy med betydelig strukturering vil være mer drivstoffproduktive.

Samfunns- og næringslivsforskning (SNF)

Rapporten undersøker hvilke økonomiske konsekvenser økte drivstoffpriser vil ha for fem utvalgte grupper av fiskeflåten; konvensjonelle kystfartøy i lukket gruppe, konvensjonelle havfartøy, trålere, kystnotfartøy i lukket gruppe og ringnotsnurpere. For å undersøke de økonomiske konsekvensene har det blitt estimert translog kostnadsfunksjoner, og elastisiteter har blitt beregnet. Resultatene viser at alle fartøygruppene har gjennomgående lav egenpriselastisitet for drivstoff. Dette innebærer at økninger i drivstoffprisene gir en betydelig direkte kostnadseffekt for alle fartøygruppene. Vi finner liten grad av substitusjonsmulighet mellom drivstoff og arbeidskraft og drivstoff og kapital. Disse resultatene indikerer at de forskjellige fartøygruppene i relativt begrenset grad kan tilpasse seg endringer i drivstoffprisene ved å endre driftsmønster. Trålerne er den mest drivstoffintensive fartøygruppen, og også den fartøygruppen hvor endringer i drivstoffprisen fører til den største endringen i totalkostnadene. Endrede drivstoffpriser gir også større endringer i totalkostnadene for de to andre typene havgående fartøy, og for de to gruppene kystfartøy. Resultatene avdekker også at økt fangstvolum per fartøy, vil gi økt utnyttelse av drivstoffet. Dette innebærer at fartøy med betydelig strukturering vil være mer drivstoffproduktive.

Nordic Council of Ministers 2018

WAS - World Aquaculture Society

European Aquaculture Society

Samfunnsøkonomenes forskermøte 2018

European Aquaculture Society

IIFET 2018

Since 2005, the costs of farming a salmon in Norway have increased steeply raising concerns about the competitiveness of the sector. The rise in costs coincides with the introduction of the Maximum Total Biomass regulation (MTB) creating a polemic debate in both academia and the industry on whether the regulation is to blame for the cost inflation. This paper analyses the impact of the MTB regime on production costs in the Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry. By using a panel data of salmon firms during the period 2005-2014 we aim to evaluate how costs changes can be attributable to input prices, scale economies, technical change, and – of key concern - the regulatory regime. Specifically, we study if the effect of regulation varies by firm size and by region as these variables are important determinants of productivity. A Bayesian approach on a system of costs and inputs share equations is used to allow for flexible specification while maintaining the regularity conditions imposed by economic theory. Empirically, the Bayesian approach makes it possible to analyze and simulate the effects of any variable along any point of the estimated cost function, which is an advantage when studying heterogeneous firm sizes. Our estimates allow us to evaluate to which extent the regulation regime has an influence on industry concentration and its possible effects on productivity. Therefore, they are a useful aid for future studies regarding the welfare effects of policy measures in the industry.

Aquaculture America 2018 Conference

International Institute for Fisheries and Trade (IIFET)

10th AD-HOC FAO FISH PRICE INDEX WORKSHOP

15th IAEE European Conference 2017

EAAE 2017

HAVBRUK 2016

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett 2016(8) p. 74-77

I denne artikkelen diskuterer vi hva FishPools futurespriser sier om fremtidige laksepriser. En forutsetning for at en futureskontrakt skal gi en god sikring er at futuresprisen er et godt estimat på fremtidig spotpris. Dette finner vi at er tilfelle. I mange etablerte futuresmarkeder har futuresprisen også en såkalt prisoppdagelsesrolle. Vi finner at Fish Pool ennå ikke har denne funksjonen. Dette kan mest sannsynlig forklares med for lav omsetning av kontraktene. Dette er synd, da en slik funksjon ville gi FishPool en enda viktigere rolle for laksenæringen.

Samfunns- og næringslivsforskning (SNF)

The demand function represents the fundamental building block in economics and provides important information for investment and policy purposes. The aim of this paper is to characterize and measure the demand structure for imported cod products to Portugal. A PCAIDS model is used to identify and measure own- and cross-price elasticities of demand for frozen, salted and salted & dried cod products. The calculated elasticities of demand are then used in combination with a demand growth index model to measure shifts in demand impacting price of product. Controlling for supply shocks the growth index shows over the period a positive growth in demand for frozen product but a negative change in demand growth for salted, and to a lesser degree, for salted & dried products. The results are used in simulating alternative price demand scenarios.

Seminar på Gøteborgs Universitet

Nor-Fishing 2016

Nofima

This is the second report from the project “Impacts of the legal framework on the aquaculture industry – simplification of regulations”, funded by The Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (FHF). The project is designed to investigate how scientific knowledge and political objectives have shaped the design and implementation of the legal framework, and to suggest possible improvements and simplifications of the regulatory regime. In this report, we focus on the regulatory system, and practices laws and regulations. The main problem with the current management structure is the strong fragmentation. As many as five (six) ministries are involved, and three levels of government involved (municipal, county and state).

Aquaculture America 2015

UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance

UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance

UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance

UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Sjømat p. 26-28

Nofima AS

Ambisjoner om videre vekst i norsk havbruksnæring har vært hyppig uttalt, både av næringen selv, og av skiftende regjeringer. Sentralt er at næringen skal gis muligheten til vekst, så lenge det skjer innenfor miljømessige bærekraftige rammer. Dette kan betraktes som en politisk målsetting for norsk havbruksnæring. Men næringens muligheter for vekst avgjøres ikke av politiske målsettinger alene. Andre sentrale rammebetingelser for vekst i næringen er den administrative organisering av forvaltningen, samt tilgang til og bruk av styringsverktøy. Gode rammebetingelser er avgjørende for næringens videre utvikling, der lover, forskrifter og andre reguleringer utgjør en sentral del av rammebetingelsene. I denne delrapporten gis en oversikt over rammeverket for norsk havbruksnæring, og vi har identifisert sentrale, mer overordnede utfordringer knyttet til utforming og praktisering av regelverket.

Global Aquaculture Advocate May/June p. 46-49

Samfunns- og næringslivsforskning AS

7th AD-HOC FAO FISH PRICE INDEX WORKSHOP

Samfunns- og næringslivsforskning (SNF)

Denne rapporten presenterer prisindekser som er utarbeidet for lakseprodukter på detaljistnivå i Europa som skal benyttes av Norsk Sjømatråd. Europa er det største markedet for norsk lakseindustri. Det er også et svært dynamisk marked, med betydelige endringer i produktsammensetningen på detaljistnivået. Skal en gjøre analyser av prisutvikling over tid er det viktig å ta hensyn til disse endringene. Prisindekser er da det vanligste verktøyet når en vil konstruere aggregerte priser. Rapporten gir en oversikt over priser og konsum av ulike lakseprodukter i det europeiske markedet. Denne oversikten er viktig for å grunngi valgene i forhold til inklusjon av ulike produktformater i lakseprisindeksene. Datagrunnlaget for å kalkulere indeksene er månedlige husholdningsundersøkelser fra GFK i Frankrike, Spania, Storbritannia og Tyskland. Produktkategoriene som er tatt med i utregningen av den hovedprisindeksen utgjør ifølge datagrunnlaget ca. 87 % av verdien og 84 % av volumet til husholdningenes konsum av laks i de fire landene. Med andre ord er størsteparten av laksekonsumet i disse store europeiske markedene representert med dette utvalget. Lakseprisindeksene dekker perioden fra januar 2010 til september 2014, og er planlagt å bli kontinuerlig oppdatert av Sjømatrådet i tråd med at GFK kommer med oppdaterte data. Hovedprisindeksen for laks er beregnet for å vise de overordnede prisbevegelsene i Europa, mens tre delindekser skal fange opp prisbevegelsene for henholdsvis ferske, frosne og røkte lakseprodukter. De tre delindeksene viser at den høyeste prisvolatiliteten er assosiert med ferske lakseprodukter etterfulgt av røkte og frosne produkter. For å kalkulere lakseprisindeksene er det i likhet med FAO sine fiskeprisindekser benyttet formel til Fisherindeks. Imidlertid viser rapporten andre indekser som Laspeyre eller Paasche ikke vil gi vesentlig forskjellige resultater. Med andre ord har ikke valg av prisindeksformel store konsekvenser på utregnede indeksverdier for det gjeldene datautvalget. I tillegg er det også kalkulert volumindekser ved hjelp av deflateringsmetoden. I kombinasjon med prisindeksene gir volumindeksene en oppsummering av hvordan underliggende tilbuds- og etterspørselsforhold påvirker markedet.

Samfunns- og næringslivsforskning (SNF)

The demand function represents the fundamental building block in economics and provides important information for investment and policy purposes. The aim of this paper is to characterize and measure the demand structure for imported cod products to Portugal. A PCAIDS model is used to identify own- and cross-price elasticities of demand for frozen, salted & dried and salted cod products. The estimated elasticities of demand are then used in combination with a demand growth index to measure shifts in demand overtime impacting price of product. Results suggest that over the period of study a strong positive shift in demand for frozen product doubling the price of the product relative to the initial period. But both imported salted & dried and salted product show overall negative shifts in demand decreasing price and may represent a structural shift towards frozen product.

SINTEF Ocean AS

Automatisering og robotisering av produksjonsprosesser forventes å få en sentral plass i samfunnet. I en utredning fra Stiftelsen for Strategisk Forsking i Sverige, forventes det at i løpet av en periode på 20 år, vil hele 46 % av alle jobber i Sverige, erstattes av digitalisering, automatisering, robotisering og ulike former for dataanalyser (Følster, 2014). En tilsvarende studie av det amerikanske arbeidsmarkedet er utført ved Universitetet i Oxford, og med samme konklusjon som i Sverige (Frey & Osborne, 2013). Det forventes at Norge må følge samme trend for å være konkurransedyktig i fremtiden.Denne rapporten har tatt for seg norsk sjømatindustris muligheter til lønnsom foredling i Norge, med fokus på teknologiutvikling og automatisering innen fiskeforedling, hvor totalutnyttelse av råstoffet er en forutsetning. Rapporten diskuterer også muligheten for ombordproduksjon som alternativ strategi for filetproduksjon. Som en viktig referanse til denne strategien er det redegjort for en rekke indikatorer som beskriver viktige rammebetingelser for industrien (Del A). Teknologiutvikling og økt automatisering er sattinn i et helhetlig perspektiv, hvor man også har vurdert hvordan teknologiutviklingen gjennom fleksible løsninger kan bidra med mer markedsorienterte produksjonsstrategier for norsk sjømatindustri. Situasjonen i dag er beskrevet, og det er skissert nødvendige fokusområder for fremtidens forskning og utvikling for å realisere visjonen om en tilnærmet fullautomatisert og bærekraftig norsk fiskeforedlingsindustri med mattrygghet i fokus (Del B). Lønnsomhetspotensialet ved økt automatisering og beskrivelse av kostnadsnivå, samt sammenligning mot andre lands foredlingsindustri er også gjennomført (Del C). Analysen er utført på oppdrag for Nærings- og fiskeridepartementet, og er et innspill til NOU-utvalget som foretar en gjennomgang av sjømatindustriens rammevilkår. Bakgrunnen for NOU-utvalgets arbeid er ønsket om å utvikle en mer konkurransedyktig sjømatindustri, gjennom å legge til rette for en bedre lønnsomhet. Denne rapporten går ikke inn på regulatoriske forhold (Råfiskloven, Deltakerloven, konsesjonsregelverket etc.), da dette er diskutert i flere andre rapporter.

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Naturressursenes økonomi p. 344-377

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

14th IAEE European Energy Conference

Global Aquaculture Advocate 16(2) p. 64-67

The 35th Annual Meeting of the Norwegian Association of Economists

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

IAEE European Conference

Lakseseminar

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Amerikan Fiheries Society

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

IAEE European Conference

Aqua 2012

PSAM11/ESREL2012

Aquanor 11

Vestnorsk Havbrukslags Årsmøte

Nettverksmøte for oppdrettstorsk 2011.

Havbrukskonferansen 2011

Årsmøte

Hardangerkonferansen 2011

XII European Workshop on Efficiency and Productivity Analysis

Gartneryrket p. 24-27

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Norsk Fiskeoppdrett

Nofima

Denne rapporten er en kartlegging av markedsforskning knyttet til sjømat i Norge, Vest-Europa og Nord-Amerika. Hensikten er å få oversikt over hvilke organisasjoner som gjør hva knyttet til dette temaet. Kartleggingen viser at om lag 10 institutter/organisasjoner i større eller mindre grad driver markedsforskning relatert til sjømat i Norge. I Europa har fem universiteter avdelinger som gjennomføre markedsforskning på sjømat, EU har gjennomført prosjektet SEAFOODplus og de nordiske landene har et program MARIFUNC under arbeid. Hovedsakelig har 1-2 forskere sjømat som spesielt fagfelt ved disse universitetene/instituttene. I Nord-Amerika har vi kun fått informasjon fra University of Rhode Island. Det har vært hensiktsmessig å dele markedsforskningen inn i seks hovedtemaer: 1. Forbrukerforskning 2. Markedsstrategi/organisasjon 3. Industriell kjøpsatferd 4. Etterspørselsanalyser 5. Markedsintegrasjon og markedsmakt 6. Hedoniske modeller, miljømerking og markedsmodeller Det gis et sammendrag av forskningen innen disse temaene. Det må bemerkes at kartleggingen delvis er avhengig av tilbakemeldinger fra kontaktpersoner ved de ulike instituttene, noe som kan bidra til at ikke alle relevante forskningsbidrag er tatt med i oversikten.

9th IAEE European Energy Conference

29th IAEE International Conference

utenTitteltekst

Aqua 2000, Responsible aquaculture in the new millenium

Norges Handelshøyskole

In this paper we examine the degree of market integration in French gas imports. Are there substantial price differences between gas from different export countries, and do prices move together? Furthermore, we analyze to what extent the French, German and Belgian markets are integrated. The long-term take-or-pay contracts are described and analyzed. Time series of Norwegian, Dutch and Russian gas export prices are examined for the period 1990-1997. Cointegration tests show that the different border prices for gas to France move proportionally over time, indicating that the Law of One Price holds. Although one could expect different producer countries to have different supply obligations, we do not find any significant differences in mean prices. When the study is extended to an inter-country analysis including Germany and Belgium, we find that national markets are highly integrated.

Annual European Energy Conference 2000, "Towards an Integrated European Energy Market", Bergen, i regi av SNF og International Association of Energy Economics (IAEE)

Stiftelsen for samfunns- og næringslivsforskning, SNF

Dagens næringsliv p. 3-3

Norsk fiskerinæring p. 84-85

Norsk fiskerinæring p. 92-95

Møreforsking Molde

In this paper we argue that when using cointegration tests to test for market integration in a multivariate context, the finding of one cointegration vector does not support the conclusion that all the goods considered belong to the same market. A necessary condition for this conclusion in a system with n prices are n-1 cointegration vectors. This also implies that the prices of all goods in the same market must be pairwise cointegrated. It is also shown that one can test the Law of One Price also when prices are nonstationary, both in a bivariate and a multivariate context.

Møreforsking Molde

Recently, a cointegration approach has been common when testing the unbiased expectations hypothesis. In this paper, we focus on the implications of accepting the cointegration conditions, but rejecting the unbiased expectations hypothesis. We show that the cointegration hypothesis can be interpreted as a test of one market for the treasury bills. However, the unbiased expectations hypothesis can still be rejected, e.g., if the liquidity premium is dependent on the level of the yields. An empirical example is given, analyzing Norwegian Treasury bills.