Research
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Anderson, C.M., Meredith, J., Felthoven, R., Fey, M., (2018). The Distribution of Fishing Revenues Among North Pacific Regions and Communities. Marine Fisheries Review 80(2), 1-16.
Anderson, J.L., Anderson, C.M., Chu, J., Meredith, J., Asche, F., Sylvia, G., et al. (2015) The Fishery Performance Indicators: A Management Tool for Triple Bottom Line Outcomes. PLoS ONE 10(5): e0122809. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122809
Meredith, J., Robinson, J., Walker, S., Wydick, B., (2013). Keeping the doctor away: Experimental evidence on investment in preventative health products. Journal of Development Economics 105: 196-210.
Working Papers
Meredith, J. “Fish or Flight: The Impact of Transferable Access Rights on Rural Alaskan Salmon Harvesters”
This paper explores how salmon harvesters in rural Alaska responded to the implementation of a limited access management regime that introduced transferable permits in 1975. In the context of a predominantly subsistence economy, the lump-sum payments from salmon permit sales were significant wealth shocks. Using household survey data collected in nine remote Alaskan villages, I estimate the impact of permit sale on the initial permitholders and their descendants. The eligibility rules used to allocate permits allow me to identify the impact of transferability by comparing the original permitholders to their younger siblings and to applicants given non-transferable permits. Sale of the permit by original permitholders makes their descendants more likely to migrate out of the original village and less likely to participate in commercial or subsistence harvest. Predominantly allocated to men, the higher value drift net permits were leveraged into an immediate increase in the probability of outmigration, an increase in durable assets, but no long run improvements in descendant outcomes. Contrary to the intentions of the permitsystem, set net permit sales by women diminish the assets of the original permitholder, but make their descendants more likely to be formally employed outside the village. The results suggest that a transition to rights-based management of natural resources will have unintended distributional consequences that undermine the sustainability of rural fishing operations. The magnitude of these effects depends on liquidity, gender norms, and labor market frictions.
Meredith, J. “Drivers of Access Right Sales: Resource Volatility, Individual Shocks, and Access to Credit in the Alaska Salmon Fishery”
This paper explores why salmon harvesters in rural Alaska choose to sell their transferable permits. Constructing an artificial panel from back cast recall survey data collected in nine remote Alaskan villages, I compare the relative importance of covariate shocks to resource markets and individual productivity shocks. I also exploit an arbitrary geographic boundary to examine the role played by additional access to training and credit offered by the local Community Development Quota (CDQ) group. Using a system of equations estimation strategy, I isolate the component of salmon permit price that is exogenously determined by covariate shocks and apply this to the individual decision to supply a permit to market. Owners of higher value drift gillnet permits are more likely to sell their permits when average permit prices are low due to volatility in salmon runs or competition from farmed salmon. This corresponds with evidence that these participants in the capital-intensive sector of the fishery are more likely to be in debt. Conversely, set net permitholders are less likely to be affected by covariate shocks and more likely to liquidate their assets following individual shocks to productivity such as the birth of a child or a divorce. For both types of permitholders, covariate shocks to salmon runs and prices are more important predictors of sale than individual productivity within the fishery. Risk preferences and the credit, grants, and training provided to residents within the CDQ boundary appear to have minimal impact on the decision to sell access rights.
Anderson, C.M., Meredith, J., Felthoven, R. “Distributional Trends of Ownership in Alaska’s Catch Share Fisheries” (under internal review at NOAA fisheries)
Works in Progress
“Keeping it in the Family: Gender and Inheritance Norms in the Alaska Salmon Fishery”
“Boom and Bust: The Impact of Uncertainty and Price Expectations on Fishery Participation”
“Differential Impacts of Catch Shares and Limited Access Permits: Evidence from Alaskan Halibut and Salmon Fisheries"
“Fishing as Income Smoothing: Weather Shocks and Fisheries Participation in Tanzania”
“The Primacy of Infrastructure Investments and Property Rights in the Management of Global Fisheries” (with Chris Anderson, James Anderson, Jingjie Chu, and Martin Smith)
Competitive Grant Funding
2014-2016 NMFS/Sea Grant Marine Resource Economics Fellowship, NOAA, Fish or Flight: Modeling the migration decisions of rural Alaskan harvesters, $77,000
2014-2016 NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Analysis of trends in regional distribution of revenue from Alaskan fisheries, $25,000
Technical Reports
Meredith, J. (2017). Guinea Bissau: Evaluation of the Environmental, Economic and Social Performance of Artisanal Fisheries using the Fisheries Performance Indicators. World Bank Policy Paper. 47pp.
Anderson, J. L., C. Anderson, J. Chu and J. Meredith. (2016). Fishery Performance Indicators Manual (Version 1.3). Institute for Sustainable Food Systems. 197 pp.
Chu, J. and J. Meredith. (2015). Economic, Environmental, and Social Evaluation of Africa’s Small-Scale Fisheries. World Bank Group Environmental and Natural Resources Global Practice Policy Note Report Number 95557-GLB. 54pp.