Optimum Management of a Hierarchically Exploited Open Access Resource: A Multilevel Optimization Approach

A multilevel optimization approach is presented for determining the optimum management of the Texas brown shrimp fishery. Independent fisher groups harvest this open access resource in a hierarchical order without cooperation among themselves or with the management authority. The special structure of the problem is exploited to derive the fishers' optimum responses to any arbitrary specification of the policy variables (season and area closures). Empirical results indicate that significant losses of income and harvest value would occur if the fishery were unmanaged. The results also indicate that optimum closure policies vary significantly depending on the policy objective specification.