Impact of stock health on fish prices: Evaluation and implications for food accessibility

Abstract

The continuous rise of the world’s population has made food security a major point of the global agenda, with fisheries providing a key source of nutrition, especially in developing countries. Ensuring their health is key to maintain the availability of the resource, but its effect over accessibility is yet unclear. In this paper, we discuss the relevance of stock health for ensuring the price accessibility of the resource. A Least Square Dummy Variable panel model is proposed for bluefin tuna prices, with a biological explanatory component, and dummy variables reflecting changes in fishing trends. Both have proven to be significant to explain annual price variations, with improvements in stock health achieving price reductions.