Summary
Amendment 80 of the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands (BSAI) fishery management plan, gave participating fisherman rights, through their participation in a cooperative, to a share of their primary target species. Previously they fished under a common property allocation system. Amendment 80 also establishes exclusive rights within the coop to prohibited species catch, i.e., halibut and red king crab. This study investigates, using econometric modeling, if the change in the regulatory structure has had any effect on fishing behaviors and decision making as compared to before Amendment 80. Econometrics combines economic theory with statistics to analyze and test economic relationships from real-world data.