Regulating Biological Resources: Lessons from Marine Fisheries in the United States

In 1996, with United States fish populations in decline, Congress overhauled fishing laws with scientific thresholds for rebuilding overfished stocks. The law’s impact is contested, and lawmakers have spent over a decade debating its reauthorization while countries around the world consider similar policies. We develop the first causally interpretable evaluation of this law, exploiting the European Union’s comparable fisheries and later adoption of similar laws. Compiling comprehensive data on US and EU fishery status and management, we examine depleted fisheries and measure the effect of a policy that aims to rebuild their population levels. We find treated populations increase by 52 percent relative to these counterfactuals, with both catch and revenue rebounding to baseline levels or greater. For at least 69 percent of successfully rebuilt stocks, the net present value of revenue exceeds simulated counterfactuals over the rebuilding and post-rebuilding period, indicating that longer-term revenue gains offset short-term losses.