Fishing effort validation and substitution possibilities among components: the case study of the VIII division European anchovy fishery

Command and control regulation programmes, particularly input constraints, typically fail to achieve stated objectives, because fishermen may substitute unregulated for regulated inputs. It is, thus, essential to have an understanding of the internal structure of production technology. A primal formulation is used to estimate a translog production function at the vessels level that includes fishing effort and fisherman's skill. The flexibility of the selected functional permits the analysis of the substitution possibilities among inputs by estimating the elasticity of substitution with no prior constraints. Particular attention is paid to the empirical validation of fishing effort as an aggregate input, which implies either, the acceptance of the joint hypothesis that inputs making up effort are weakly separable from the inputs out of the subgroup or considering that effort is an intermediate input produced by a non-separable two stage technology. Cross-sectional data from the Spanish purse seine fleet operating in the VIII Division European anchovy fishery provide evidence of limited input substitution possibilities among the inputs making up the empirically validated fishing effort translog micro-production function.