V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 



This report (1) identifies economic information requirements under the 

 Fisheries Conservation and Management Act of 1976; (2) describes the current 

 economic data base; (3) identifies additional data required to fulfill the 

 information requirements in (1); and (4) projects program costs to remove 

 these gaps.^ 



It is concluded that substantial economic information requirements are 

 implied under the Act and failure to satisfy these requirements could result 

 in successful court challenges to management plans. The Sections of the Act 

 which contain these informational implications are discussed in Section I.D. 

 They are associated with (1) determination of optimum sustainable yield 

 (OSY) ; (2) national standards for fishery conservation and management; 

 (3) fisheries development; (4) foreign catch allocations; and (4) conditions 

 of access for foreign vessels. Informational requirements identified include 

 (1) cost and returns; (2) price and regional employment effects of manage- 

 ment measures; and (3) institutional factors with economic implications 

 including foreign fleet subsidies and international trade barriers. 



The primary source of economic data and analysis at the present time 

 and for the foreseeable future is the National Marine Fisheries Service (see 

 Section II. A). Various ad hoc data collection and analyses are conducted 

 by universities and/or Sea Grant. The respective states have no programs 

 for collection of economic data other than landings and landed value sta- 

 tistics. 



^The reader is referred to Section I.B of this report for restric- 

 tions on its scope. 



