The Economic payoffs from Marine Reserves: Resource Rents in a Stochastic Environment

In this paper we analysed the economic payoffs from marine reserves using a stochastic optimal control model, with a jump-diffusion process. The results show that even if the reserve and harvested populations face the same negative shocks, harvesting is optimal, the population is persistent and there is no uncertainty over current stock size, a reserve can increase resource rents. Using fishery data we demonstrate that the payoffs from a reserve, and also optimum reserve size, increase the larger is the magnitude of the negative shock, the greater its frequency and the larger its relative impact on the harvested population.