Analysis of Japanese Demand for Alaska Groundfish

In 1977, the United States enacted the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MFCMA), which established U.S. Fisheries Conservation Zone (FCZ). The MFCMA grants preference to U.S. harvesters over foreign fleets in the U.S. FCZ. At present, the large stocks of groundfish in the U.S. FCZ off the Alaska coast have been under-utilized in the U.S. domestic market and the fisheries for these groundfish are dominated by foreign fleets. Hence, expected benefits from replacing foreign fisheries by domestic fleets will accrue to the U.S. fishery only by exporting the increased U.S. products to foreign countries. U.S. exports may be dependent on the price levels in the foreign markets raised by the reduced foreign catch from U,S. waters. In this paper, Japanese demand models for Alaska groundfish were estimated. The derived coefficient from the estimated models suggest that a decrease in the Japanese landings from the U.S. FCZ by a thousand metric tons will increase pollock price by 0.017 Yen/kg, cod price by 0.351 Yen/kg, flatfish by 1.074 Yen/kg, and ocean perch by 1.347 Yen/kg in the Japanese market. These results based on percentage would increase 19 percent for pollock price, 11 percent for cod price, 40 percent for flatfish, and 2 percent for ocean perch price.