Prices versus Quantities in Fisheries Models: Comment

Jensen and Vestergaard (2003) compare price regulation with quantity regulation under economic uncertainty in the spirit of Weitzman (1974). For a schooling fishery without search cost, they find that price regulation is preferred over quantity regulation, when demand for fish is elastic. However, this finding is based on an assumption that does not hold and, in fact; quantity regulation is always preferred for this type of fishery, irrespective of the demand elasticity. In this note, we show that a pro quota result always applies for a schooling fishery without search costs.