Rent creation and distribution-Theory and the Vietnamese small scale purse seine fishery

The papers of this thesis are not available in Munin: 1. Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, Ola Flaaten and Nguyen Thi Kim Anh: 'Remuneration Systems and Economic Performance: Theory and Vietnamese Small-scale Purse Seine Fisheries' Marine Resource Economics (2013), vol.28(1):19-41. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.5950/0738-1360-28.1.19 2. Pham Thi Thanh Thuy and Ola Flaaten: 'Middlemen: Good for Resources and Fishermen?' (manuscript) 3. Pham Thi Thanh Thuy and Ola Flaaten: 'The Backward-Bending Supply Curve in Fisheries – Revisited' (manuscript) ; In Vietnam, as in many other countries, the fisheries sector plays an important role in securing food, providing livelihood, and promoting economic development. Vietnamese fisheries are characterized by open access, and the number of fishing vessels has increased tremendously over the past years while the harvest growth has slowed down. This seems to indicate that the fisheries have reached the limit on the growth, and that overfishing in near-shore waters may be imminent. Overfishing has become an important issue for governments and organizations in all coastal states in recent years. Sustainability is now stated as an overriding policy objective. The concept of sustainable development makes clear that environmental, economic and social goals must be met simultaneously. Hence, in the management process, both environmental well-being and human well-being must be taken into consideration. The central topic of this thesis is how and to what extent open-access fisheries may be consistent with or opposed to the goals of sustainable development. It is obvious that open-access fisheries may contradict the goal of environmental well-being. However, it is more unclear what an open-access regime does mean for the goal of human well-being. In the literature, it is generally assumed that the economic rent will disappear because of the common property problem. This thesis questions this assumption and takes a closer look at the processes of rent creation and distribution, and how these may ...