Seward's Folly, Salmon Management and Discounting Rates

Hilborn, R., Lee, H.V., & Yorque, R. (1975). Seward's Folly, Salmon Management and Discounting Rates. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-75-059

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Abstract

Some months ago, the ecology project gave a series of two IIASA colloquia on some of the approaches to the salmon case study. Part of the presentations dealt with optimization of various components of the salmon system. These optimizations were done using stochastic dynamic programming. Some members of the audience expressed concern over the fact that we had used no discounting. Carl Walters explained that we did this because the management agencies are charged with management in perpetuity and therefore any sort of discounting seems a bit inappropriate. Some recent work has shown that optimal management practice of fisheries is seriously affected by discounting rates. The standard example in extremis of this problem has to do with any renewable resource.

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