common-property resource. Applying Economic Concepts 16-1 examines
the depletion of the world’s fisheries.
Applying Economic Concepts 16-1
The World’s Endangered Fish
Fish in the ocean are a common-property resource, and theory
predicts that such a resource will be overexploited if there is a
high enough demand for the product and suppliers are able to
meet that demand. In the distant past there were neither
enough people eating fish nor efficient enough fishing
technologies to endanger stocks. Over the last 50 years,
however, the population explosion has added to the demand
for fish, and advances in technology have vastly increased the
ability to catch fish. Large boats, radar detection, and huge
bottom-trawling nets allow humans to scoop up more and
more fish. As a result, the overfishing prediction of common-
property theory has been amply borne out. Today, fish are a
common-property resource; tomorrow, they could become no
one’s resource.
Since 1950 the world’s annual capture of fish has increased by
more than four times, from 20 million tonnes in 1950 to more
than 80 million tonnes today (not including the “catch” from
farmed fish, which raises the current annual haul to more than
130 million tonnes). The increase was sustained only by