Patterns in the Relative Price for Different Sizes of Farmed Fish

Fish farming is a biological production process dependent upon biological and environmental conditions. These constraints imply that different fish farmers are likely to have a similar distribution of different sizes of fish over time. If there are no perfect substitutes for the different sizes offish in the shortrun, this production cycle can cause different relative prices between the different sizes over the year. By studying prices for different sizes of salmon for the period 1992-98, we show that such patterns exist. This can have important implications when studying aquaculture industries and markets. We look closer at two issues — optimal harvesting decisions and aggregation.