Resource Scarcity and Inequality in the Distribution of Catch

What happens to the distribution of catch when resources become scarce/ Catch distributions for most fisheries where the stock is limiting are skewed such that the largest number of fishers take the smallest catches. Economic efficiency goals result in suggestions to eliminate small, inefficient producers. Oregon salmon fishing and bottom trawling, plus two nonfishery examples, illustrate that catch distributions become even more skewed with increasing resource scarcity. A simple model shows how increases in the number fishing and improvements in technical efficiency contribute to the creation of a distributional pattern in which a very few fishermen are very successful, whereas most other fishermen take increasingly smaller shares of the resource. Fishery management rules that apply equally to each participant in the fishery result in greater relative advantage for some producers and increase inequality.