The Stability of Fishing Agreements with Entry: The Northeast Atlantic Mackerel

This paper investigates the stability of agreements for sharing fish
stocks among coastal states when migrations patterns change — a
heretofore largely unexplored topic. The case investigated is the agreement on sharing the mackerel stock (Scomber scombrus) in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. Since 2000, this stock has been shared by three
coastal states. However, in 2007, the fish changed its migration pattern, entering the waters of a fourth state. This led to the collapse of
the previous agreement in 2010, causing severe overfishing. The game
of the new entrant is modeled using the partition function approach
with strictly convex cost functions. The results indicate that the stability decreases with the new entrant but increases when the prices are
heterogeneous. In addition, the larger players need to pay the most
relatively to get the new entrant into the game.