Throughout its history the North Pacific halibut fishery has experienced dramatic changes in season length—most recently a greater than tenfold decrease during the last fifteen years. This analysis estimates the effect on exvessel halibut demand of season length by incorporating it with other more traditional explanatory variables such as landings, cold storage holdings, and prices of substitutes in a price dependent demand analysis. Exvessel demand is found to be price elastic; thus management programs that increase catch will also increase gross fishing revenues. Cold storage holdings have an inverse relationship to exvessel price. Since the level of cold storage holdings decreases as the fishing season approaches, the date of the first opening will affect the exvessel price. Finally the length of the halibut season does have a positive relationship with exvessel price; management strategies, such as limited entry, that increase season length will increase exvessel demand.
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Lin et al. (1987) studied this question.