Resource industries like oil and fishing are characterized by boom-and-bust cycles – there are “good years” and “bad years.” In communities that are highly connected to a particular resource, these economic shocks are foregrounded in the public attention. But how well does news coverage of the shocks reflect the actual health of the economy?
October 25, 2019 Update: Presentation is now available for download, link below. Ocean acidification is expected to impact Alaska’s marine species and the $5.8 billion seafood industry. Higher acidity water affects the ability of shell-building organisms, like crabs, to develop and maintain their shells and may also affect the behavior of some fish species. Alaska is predisposed to ocean acidification due to its colder water temperature, making it likely that we will feel the effects sooner and more intensely than other regions.
This summer, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game closed two lakes in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to control the spread of the freshwater invasive plant Elodea by floatplanes and boats. Clean-up efforts for the two lakes are predicted to cost $1 million.
ISER researchers Tobias Schwörer, Kevin Berry and Marie Lowe are part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers looking at how increased ocean acidification (OA) may impact Alaska salmon fisheries and adaptation measures available to fisheries stakeholders and policymakers.
ISER’s Kevin Berry and former ISER Director and Professor Emeritus Gunnar Knapp gave presentations at the annual University of Washington-Fisheries Research Institute meeting with Bristol Bay salmon processors in Seattle, Washington, January 18.
Surveys often ask people to assign a value to some specific thing, by estimating how much they’d be willing to pay for it. But there can be a difference between what people say they would pay, and what they would pay, if they actually had to buy something. Economists call this “hypothetical bias,” and they try various ways to overcome it. One way is telling respondents their answers are consequential—that is, their answers can potentially influence actions of agencies or organizations.
Qiujie “Angie” Zheng, an associate professor of economics at UAA, incorporated this notion of consequentiality in a choice experiment in 2015. She worked with colleagues in other U.S. and Chinese universities to survey more than 1,000 shoppers at supermarkets in three Chinese cities, to assess their willingness to pay for Alaska salmon. Currently, little Alaska salmon is available in China.
Join us at ISER to hear what Dr. Zheng learned about Chinese consumers' perceptions about Alaska salmon, and how they value specific characteristics of that salmon.
When: Friday, September 22, 12 to 1
Where: ISER Conference Room, Third Floor, 1901 Bragaw Street, Suite 301
Note: This talk will not be streamed or recorded.
Commercial and recreational fisheries are very different: the commercial fishery is a resource extraction, processing, and retailing industry; the recreational fishery is a form of outdoor recreation, influenced not only by the availability of fish but by the environmental setting and other factors aside from fish. How can we make a fair comparison of their economic value?
Gordon Gislason, a fisheries economist from Vancouver, British Columbia, talks about a framework he has developed for analyzing and comparing the economic value of the two kinds of fisheries. As a case study, he estimated the commercial and recreational values of Chinook salmon in Pacific Canada. Please join us to hear what he found.
A new report by ISER economists Gunnar Knapp, Mouhcine Guettabi, and Scott Goldsmith assesses the economic importance of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery, the world's most valuable wild salmon fishery. Nearly half the wild sockeye salmon harvested worldwide come from Bristol Bay. The researchers found that as of 2010, Bristol Bay salmon created $1.5 billion in sales value across the United States—through harvesting, processing, and retailing of Bristol Bay salmon—and the additional economic effects of those activities.
In a new analysis, Matthew Berman and Jeffrey Armagost of ISER estimate that natural amenities—mainly salmon streams and lakes but also public parks and other protected areas—contribute roughly 37% of the total $7 billion in appraised value of vacant land and residential property in the Mat-Su Borough. The analysis is based on characteristics of residential parcels (both vacant land and land with cabins or houses) sold in the borough in 2009 and 2010. The work was supported by The Nature Conservancy, the Bullitt Foundation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Gunnar Knapp, ISER director and professor of economics, recently talked to the Alaska Legislature about trends in Alaska and world salmon markets. Read his presentation to learn about how salmon markets are changing, what's driving the changes, and what the future might hold.
Download the PDF of his presentation (4.4MB).