How electric cars and trucks can charge smarter
On Thursday May 28 Fabian Brockmann will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend his thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.
Balancing efficiency and equity in fisheries management
On Wednesday May 27 Mads Fjeld Wold will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend his thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.
Title of the thesis:
«Essays on Efficiency, Equity, and Public Policy under Rights-Based Fisheries Management»
Fisheries play an important role in global food production and support livelihoods in many coastal communities, making their sustainable management a key policy concern. Market-based management systems promise efficiency gains and biological sustainability, but can also generate unintended social consequences by altering industry structure and the distribution of benefits.
In his doctoral thesis, Mads Fjeld Wold examines how regulatory design and public policy shape economic outcomes in rights-based fisheries management. Using the Norwegian coastal cod fishery as a primary case, the thesis explores how restrictions on quota markets and public investment policies influence efficiency, ownership patterns, and distributional outcomes.
The thesis combines detailed administrative data on vessels, quota ownership, tax records, and public subsidies with econometric methods. Across three essays, the thesis studies how policy instruments interact to influence efficiency and equity.
The first essay shows that regulatory constraints on quota transfers, motivated by equity concerns, are reflected in the value of harvesting rights. Quotas subject to stricter limits command significantly lower market values, indicating substantial efficiency costs of policies designed to address these concerns.
The second essay documents how the introduction of transferable quotas reshaped the fishing fleet. Quota markets accelerated the exit of vessels and led to increased concentration of quota ownership on fewer and larger vessels, with shifts in geographic distribution toward selected municipalities.
The third essay turns to the role of local public policy in managing natural resource. It examines public investment support to the fishing industry, mapping subsidy provision over almost two decades. The analysis shows that transfers were substantial and highly uneven, concentrated in rural areas. The findings further suggest that the availability of public funding locally may influence quota investments and thereby the spatial distribution of ownership.
Taken together, the thesis provides new evidence on how market design and local policy shape ownership patterns and economic outcomes in fisheries. The findings inform debates on catch-share design and regional policy, while also providing a foundation for future research on how to balance efficiency, equity, and sustainability in resource management.
Prescribed topic for the trial lecture:
«Climate policy and inequality»
Trial lecture:
10:15, Karl Borch Aud, NHH
Defense:
12:15, Karl Borch Aud, NHH
Supervisors:
Professor Linda Nøstbakken (main supervisor), Director of Research, Statistics Norway, Professor, Department of Economics, NHH
Professor Corbett Grainger, University of Wisconsin
Members of the evaluation committee:
Professor Kjell G. Salvanes (leader of the committee), Department of Economics, NHH
Professor Claire Armstrong, UiT
Senior Lecturer Håkan Eggert, University of Gothenburg