Abstract

The snow crab fishery faces increasing vulnerability to environmental factors, yet the literature on the relationship between climate change and snow crab harvest remains limited. This study estimates snow crab harvest functions using climate change indicators with unbalanced panel data of snow crab production from the eastern Bering Sea (Alaska), the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence (Canada), the Sea of Japan, and the Barents Sea (Norway-Russia). The relationship between snow crab biomass, stock, and catch is analyzed and the endogeneity of stock in the harvest function is also addressed using climate change indicators as instrumental variables (IVs). The results show that the extent of Arctic sea ice is effective in addressing the endogeneity, and the random effects IV model with error components two stage least squares estimator performs the best to control heterogeneity. A 1% increase in snow crab fishing effort is associated with a 0.42% increase in snow crab harvest, and a 1% increase in snow crab stock causes a 0.98% increase in snow crab harvest. The reported estimates indicate a large stock-harvest elasticity and provide supporting evidence to prioritize stock enhancement in snow crab fishery policy designs to maintain stocks at sustainable levels and minimize government expenditures on subsidies.

Comments

This is the publisher PDF Tao, J., Quagrainie, K. K., Foster, K. A., & Widmar, N. O. (2024). A regional analysis of climate change effects on global snow crab fishery. Natural Resource Modeling, 37, e12406. Published CC-BY-NC, the version of record and ADA Title II compliant version is available in HTML at DOI: 10.1111/nrm.12406

Keywords

climate change, instrumental variable, random effects, snow crab

Date of this Version

8-5-2024

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