Assessing the economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic on Swedish shrimp fishers

Davide Dutto; Krister Mars; Håkan Eggert

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105496

Assessing the economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic on Swedish shrimp fishers

Mar Policy. 2023 Apr:150:105496. doi: 10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105496. Epub 2023 Jan 27.

Authors

Davide Dutto¹, Krister Mars¹, Håkan Eggert¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 640, SE 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.

Abstract

This paper explores the effect of the perceived risk of the Swedish people of Covid-19 on daily auctioned shrimp prices from the start of the pandemic to the end of the year 2021. This topic is of interest to see whether the government intervention in the shrimp market to aid fishers with possible losses was justified. The Swedish shrimp fishery was for a long time managed by Regulated Open Access, but in January 1, 2017, it was transformed to a Strong User Rights Fishery by the introduction of Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs). We use empirical data from the period from 2018 to 2021. We find that auction prices were negatively affected by covid-19 cases by SEK 19.83/kg (-9.37%), and that fishers have suffered a loss of SEK 21.5 million.

Keywords: COVID-19; Economics; Fisheries; Food; Prices; Shrimp; Strong User Rights.