2. Literature review
The overexploitation of marine resources and economic inefficiency
that derives from free access to such resources justifies
the introduction of regulatory measures that allow to change the
behaviour of fishermen for bringing up the situation of fishery
closer to the desirable or sustainable status from a bio-economicpoint of view, including measures such as the application of
property rights or market instruments, or taxes. The success of any
regulatory measure depends on the complexity of the reality. This
complexity increases with size of the fishery, number and diversity
of agents operating in it and their interests, their level of cooperation,
and degree of mobility of both marine resource and fishermenHowever, the possibilities of success also depend on the institutions
that exist, and so it would be advisable for the different fishery
administrations to have sufficient credibility among fishermen so
that regulations can be applied as legitimately and with the
greatest degree of compliance as possibleOn other hand, if fishermen
operate with high uncertainty level as to their possibilities of
carrying out fishing activities in the future, they will have less
incentive to fish responsibly insofar as marine resource conservation
is concerned. A possible means of guaranteeing their future
participation in the fishery lies in the progressive implementation
of individual transferable rights1991), either with regard
to a part of the catches (individual transferable quotas or ITQs) or
fishing effort (transferable effort). The use of these market instruments
could be more efficient and less costly than other measures
such as funding for vessel scrapping schemes to adapt fishing
capacity to the situation of fish stocks. In addition, these instruments
would make it possible to reduce excess capacity, as
agents adapt their activity to fishing rights in order to achieve
economic efficiencyThere are disadvantages, however, among which are the
inequity and the concentration of rights among a small number of
owners