Are Fishermen Rational? A Fishing Expedition

Uncertainty is a defining characteristic of fisheries. Fishermen make decisions affecting their livelihood daily and even hourly, often with scant information on which to evaluate alternatives. Cognitive psychologists and behavioral economists have shown that decisions involving uncertainty often diverge substantially from what would be predicted by expected utility theory. I review relevant findings from the literature on decision making under uncertainty and previous empirical modeling of fishing decisions, and explore the implications of a number of different behavioral theories on fishing decisions of various types. Excerpts from ethnographic interviews of groundfish fishermen in New England are used to illustrate how these fishermen deal with uncertainty in decisions they make about when, where, how, and how long to fish. The interviews provide anecdotal evidence in support of prospect theory and other behavioral hypotheses that appear to contrast with what would be considered rational behavior from a neoclassical economics perspective.