34 



run. As stocks recover the processing sector should have little difficulty 

 in expanding. This is especially true since stock recovery can be predicted 

 sometime in advance from relative year class strength data. This lag pro- 

 vides a partial cushion against bottlenecks in the processing sector. 



In the harvesting sector some additional capacity may be necessary if 

 stocks recover. The history of exploited fisheries suggests that such addi- 

 tional capacity will materialize through normal investment decisions. The 

 problem is likely to be to avoid excessive investment in harvest capacity. 



For fisheries with development potential (see Appendix Table A. 3) the 

 adequacy of harvesting and processing sector capacities is more problematic. 

 Several factors are involved. First the vessels and/or gear are in some 

 cases distinctly different from vessels and/or gear in established fisheries. 

 Second, the stocks are large relative to the current domestic industry and 

 third, the markets are very different and are not familiar. Thus, the 

 capacity question is intimately connected with development of underutilized 

 stocks; which is discussed later in this section. 



Cc) Cost and earnings data 



The most general or pervasive need for additional economic data is 

 that of costs and earnings data. Since fisheries management will be aimed 

 at the OSY rather than at the MSY, the need for economic data on the per- 

 formance of the U.S. fishing fleet is obvious. The need for relatively 

 up-to-date cost and earnings records for vessels in different fisheries has 

 existed for a long time, as demonstrated by the large number of requests 

 received by government and universities for such information. The supply 

 has been scarce, however, and one even finds reports published based on 

 antiquated cost and earnings data collected a decade earlier by a university. 

 It is a commentary on the data base that such reports can honestly cite the 



