Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
We analyze a competitive fishery with congestion in which each skipper is privately informed about fish abundance, and we study the broader implications for the entire fishery. Harvest strategies are shown to depend on congestion, the number of vessels, fishers' prior information, and the precision of their signal. As information signals are valuable, fishers have incentives to share them despite congestion costs. Yet, this cooperative behavior tends to increase aggregate harvests but also makes it harder for fishery managers to predict harvests. The existence of information sharing (IS) is not independent of the existing policy framework, and new policy measures aimed at reducing harvests can trigger IS and, ultimately, result in higher fish mortality. The strategic release by the manager of abundance information changes fishing effort and, hence, can become a policy tool through which harvests can be lowered. Finally, we investigate the implications of having several IS groups.