• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.415-435
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to analyze the returns to scale by estimating the bigeye tuna production function of Korean distant longline fisheries in WCFPC waters. In the analysis, number of crews, vessel tonnage, number of hooks, and bigeye tuna biomass are used as input variables and the catch amount of bigeye tuna is used as an output variable in the Cobb-Douglas production function. Prior to the function estimation, the biomass of bigeye tuna was estimated by the Bayesian state-space model. Results showed that the fixed effect model was selected based on the hausman test, and vessel tonnage, hooks, and biomass would have direct effects on the catch amount. In addition, it was shown that the bigeye tuna distant longline fisheries in WCFPC water would have increasing returns to scale.