Comparison of optimal harvesting policies with general logistic growth and a general harvesting function

Abstract

This paper explores stochastic differential equation models to characterize the growth dynamics of a stock modeled by generalized logistic growth under a general harvesting function. The latter function adds diminishing marginal productivity to effort increases, while the former incorporates several well‐known growth functions as particular instances. In order to obtain optimal policies, a Crank–Nicolson discretization scheme is derived for the general models. We employ the optimal control theory to determine the optimal harvesting policy for a specific harvested stock and compare the expected net present value of the harvester's total profit earned across harvesting policies. The main conclusion is that models with a higher growth rate result in greater profit values.