Understanding the Determinants of Hired Skipper Use in the Alaska Halibut Individual Fishing Quota Fishery

There is a growing body of literature evidencing the distributional impacts of leasing in catch‐share fisheries but little research on the determinants of the leasing decision itself. This study addresses this gap by using a discrete‐choice model to examine the determinants of the decision of quota shareholders to use hired skippers in the individual fishing quota (IFQ) fishery for Pacific Halibut Hippoglossus stenolepis in Alaska. Since the implementation of that Alaska IFQ program, there has been an increasing reliance on hired skippers by initial quota‐share recipients in relationships that are often functionally equivalent to leasing. This has hampered the North Pacific Fishery Management Council's efforts to ultimately transition the IFQ catcher‐vessel fleet to a group of owner‐operators. This study shows that the probability of hiring a skipper is statistically significantly related to the residency and shareholdings of shareholders and identifies potential attributes of shareholdings, including quantity and diversity, which may contribute to more hired skipper use. This information may allow fishery managers to both predict the degree of such practices and to customize regulations that lead to preferred outcomes in program design or modification, as it relates to the IFQ program and other catch‐share programs wherein leasing is a common practice prone to controversy. Received October 9, 2015; accepted April 13, 2016 Published online September 8, 2016