Economics of Antarctic Minke Whale Catches: Sustainability and Welfare Considerations

Abstract

Clark's bioeconomic model is applied to Antarctic minke whales (AMW), the backbone of the commercial whaling in 1982 when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) opted for a ban on whaling commencing 1985/86. The moratorium appears not to be justified from the point of view of saving AMW from extinction or for maximising the net present value of returns to whalers. Catch quotas before the moratorium are found to be lower than needed for survival of the species and for sustainability of the harvests and returns. It seems that the IWC catch quotas and the moratorium were determined not by conventional bioeconomics, but by other factors such as political pressure from conservationists who suffered adverse externalities from whaling. Nevertheless, even taking such externalities into account, the present moratorium seems not to be Kaldor-Hicks optimal.