A Big Data Analysis Research on Improving the Inefficiency and

Uneven Distribution of Fishery Industry by using Game Theory

Bingnan Liu

Ferguson College of Agriculture, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater,74078, U.S.A.

Keywords: Game Theory, Fishery Stocks, Cooperation, Regulation, Big Data Analysis.

Abstract: International fishery stocks are consumed faster than ever before, and the management of it comes to the

center of the stage. However, lots of issues are here in terms of managing international fishing stock. It can

be known that there is a lack of potential research and application with big data analysis on internaltional

fishery stocks. By conducting this research, and by using big data analysis, the author expects to have a better

command of the current situation of international fishing resources and its core problems, and thus providing

corresponding solutions to improve or tackle the dilemma. In terms of the detailed big data analysis method,

Game theory is utilized. Game theory, including one of its subtopics, Nash equilibrium, is mainly used to

analyze the situation of international fishery stocks and provide relevant countermeasures. This reserach

adopts a method by organizing and analyzing data of various populations of internationery fishery stocks,

which focuses on southern ocean region, and then comparing the status of the populations before and after

the implemention of international treaties, the change manifests. The research result shows that economy,

together with ecology welfare, have been improved to a better level. The research conclusions are as follows,

by using big data analysis incorporating Game Theory, cooperation among different countries, should be

realized by passing international laws and subscribing international agreements, which facilitate managing

international fishery stocks using ecosystem principles.

1 INTRODUCTION

There are still many problems in the management of

international fishery resources. Illegal and

unreported fishing activities, non-cooperation among

countries, over-exploitation of resources by

fishermen, and uneven distribution of international

fishing resources, all of which make it hard to deal

with the current management problem of

international fishing resources. But the problem is

still essential to solve. The motivation of this paper

is to prove that further measures should be taken to

improve the situation and thus provide potential

solutions to change and improve the international

fishing resources management situation. By

conducting this research, more knowledge is gained

to lay a firm foundation for solving the problem

above, such as how the world fishery status is, the

urgency of strengthening cooperation among

countries, especially encouraging more developing

countries to join in.

The research methods used in the research

process are game theory and its relative concept, as

well as the Nash Equilibrium. By conducting game

theory and strengthen the international cooperation,

both economic and ecological optimum can be

achieved, specifically, by passing legislation and

signing international agreements. Although game

theory has been applied in lots of fields and been also

put emphasis by fishery economists now, it is the late

1970s when internationally shared fish stocks begin

to draw the application of game theory. The

development path of game theory in international

fishery stock, although being long and burdensome,

is still an effective strategic interaction in the premise

of the application of game theory. In addition at first,

economists care not much about the fish resources.

They are considered as internationally shared, before

the advent of UN Third Conference on the Law of the

Sea (Grønbæk et al., 2018). After then, coalition

games are then used mainly on trans-boundary stocks

and straddling fish stocks.

It means a lot when game theory is applied to the

international fishery stock. It can be known from the

tragedy of commons where individuals just consider

their own best self-interest when using shared

Liu, B.

A Big Data Analysis Research on Improving the Inefﬁciency and Uneven Distribution of Fishery Industry by using Game Theory.

DOI: 10.5220/0011343300003437

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis (PMBDA 2021), pages 281-287

ISBN: 978-989-758-589-0

281

resources, the resources will be depleted quickly if

everyone does so. That is also true for the fishery

stocks.

2 DISCUSSION

2.1 What Game Theory Is

Game theory is developed with the purpose of

helping decision makers understand the situation

better and further interact with each other. Conflict

and cooperation are happening constantly and

alternately. It is also relevant to questions involving

participation, compliance, and enforcement of

international agreements. Different models are used

in different situations when applying game theory.

When there is game with perfect information, Nash

equilibrium Mixed Strategy and some other models

can be used. When there is imperfect information,

Bayesian game is one of choice. However, no matter

what kinds of models of game theory is used, rational

choices of the participants are the premise of the

application of game theory. According to Martin,

“rational” does not focus on the nature or the quality

of the participants’ preferences, instead, the

rationality means the participant can always make

consistent decisions when different set of actions are

available. Simply put it, game theory provides

general mathematical techniques for analysing

situations in which two or more individuals make

decisions that will influence one another’s welfare.

In consequence, game theory offers insights of

fundamental importance for scholars in all branches

of the social sciences, as well as for practical

decision-makers.

When it comes to international issues, the

international institutes are always weak, for the

reason that they cannot force any country to do

something. In addition, the international cooperation

often provides incentives for the free riders to take

advantages of what has been done by some other

countries, which is unfair. However, the game theory

helps improve the situation.

To be more specific, free-riding and betrayers in

a game can be seen as two main problems when it

comes to how to manage and utilize international

fishery stock. Game theory, or Nash equilibrium, can

be used to illustrate the idea and as a solution to

mitigation these two problems for the following two

reasons. On the one hand, threat of trade restrictions

could play in prevention of free riding. On the

another hand, punishments for betrayers are

necessary to sustain the game and make it fair for

every participant.

Now dive into how participants should behave in

repeated games using game theory. Participants

could condition current actions on the history, in

other words, if the opponents participant B

cooperated in the past, participant A continues to

cooperate and participant A defects otherwise, that is

so-called time when participant A switch to

“punishment regime”. By doing these, the

cooperation can be sustained, compared with not

punishing the opponent B when they betray

participant A in the game, the game can be sustained.

It is quite like social norms, when everyone follows

the social norm in the past, participants will continue

to follow it in the present. If the deviation from the

social norm is detected, participants who have

followed the norms will then switch to punishment.

Usually, this kind of social norms are self-

sustaining and require the interaction with the same

players. Besides, it is always difficult to sustain “non-

equilibrium” social norm in large anonymous

societies. In addition, here comes the importance of

punishing the one that betrays. When the prisoner’s

dilemma for two or more finite periods are repeated,

from backward induction it is known that no matter

how many times agents interact, as long as it is finite,

cooperation cannot be self-sustained. Two

possibilities are here to deal with this, first, change

the time horizon to infinite. Second, use the worst as

a punishment for a deviation from cooperation.

2.2 How Game Theory Was Applied in

the History

At first, there is a lack of interest in applying game

theory to fish stocks, for fish stocks are considered

common resources if they are in international waters.

However, the situation of the management of world

fisheries has been changed thoroughly since the UN

Third Conference on the Law of the Sea (Grønbæk et

al., 2018). The Exclusive Economic Zone regime has

set up then, the member of which are mainly states

that borders on sea. It is of great importance to bring

the problem of fishery stock in the field of vision. It

is the Exclusive Economic Zone regime that made

the consumption of fishery resources an issue that is

related to the whole world. Any fishery resource, as

long as it relates to two or more than two states,

should be managed correspondingly (Monro et al.,

2004).

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2.3 How Game Theory Can Be Applied

to Facilitate Cooperation

Now use some simple numbers to show how game

theory can be used to determine what the best results

are for the participants and the importance of

punishing the betrayers. In the following example,

games will be played for two times. If this game is

played only for one time, (D1, d1) and (D2, d2) are

two pure strategy Nash equilibrium. And the first

equilibrium dominates the second one. People may

wonder whether (C, c) is a sustainable strategy for

the first period, cause it would be beneficial for both

players. In order to check that, play (C, c) in the first

period and if (C, c) was played at t = 1 then (D1, d1)

is going to be played at t = 2. Otherwise, to serve as

a punishment when one of participants act for their

own best interest and hurts the benefit of another

player, the betrayed player plays (D2, d2) at t = 2. By

using one-step deviation, people can get the answer

that there is no profitable deviation from C in certain

circumstance.

As for what strategy should be applied for

infinitely repeated games, Grim trigger strategy

should be played. Punishment for not carrying out

punishment is also necessary, due to an incentive to

sustain a punishment and the need to make the game

and promise credible. Thus these incentives are

achieved by imposing a punishment for not carrying

out punishment. This requirement of punishing the

party when it does not carry out the punishment when

another party betrays is suitable when it comes to

fishery sock.

Table 1: Repeated interation and cooperation: multiple

inefficient equilibria.

c d1 d2

C 2,2 -2,3 -3,3

D1 3,-2 1,1 -2,-2

D2 3,-3 -2,-2 -1,-1

2.4 Existing Problems of International

Fishing Industry

2.4.1 Unregulated Fishing Is in the Way of

Successful International Fishery

Management

Lack of regulation is one of the major threats to the

success of international fishery management.

However, some international fishery laws are

considered as “soft law”, for they have no-binding

treaties of global nature. Besides, the intensity of

supervision and the perfection of the supervision

system are very different for different species of fish.

As it is decided by FAO (Food and Agriculture

Organization), only 16 out of more than 30 Regional

Fisheries Management Organization all over the

world are qualified as the ones with the ability of

setting up both conservation and management

measures. In addition, these Regional Fisheries

Management Organization have discrete focus. In

other words, some fish species, like tuna, are

monitored and regulated by many Regional Fisheries

Management Organization. However, some other

species are left with little, or even no measurement at

all (Erickson, 2004).

Over-exploitation is one of the main challenges

that is faced by international fishery stock. It is

directly associated with the illegal, unreported, and

unregulated fishing. However, some other factors

also contribute to the over-exploitation of the fish.

The fishery is always considered as common

property resource, especially when it comes to the

one that in the border and territorial waters of coastal

states. According to the state of world fisheries and

aquaculture and to a report in 2020 by Food and

Agriculture Organization of the United Nation, there

had been a 14% rise in global capture fisheries

production resources from 1990 to 2018 (FAO,

2020). Increasing awareness of the health benefit of

the fish and rising incomes world worldwide make

consumers more willing to consume fish. As a result,

the wild fish is consumed at a speeding rate. Here is

a quick look of the global situation of the 600 marine

fish stocks monitored by FAO. Until 2011, the

percentage of moderately exploited and fully

exploited had been 20% and 52%, respectively. What

is worse, 17% of fishery stock were over-exploited

and 7% of it were depleted totally (FAO, 2011).

The sustainability of international stock fishery

should be paid much more attention, due to the fact

that the sustainability level of some of the

populations of the international fishery stocks which

were considered as sustainable have dropped to a

large deree. It is shown in the figure 1, that the degree

of the sustainability level of some once sustainable

fishery stocks poplutions have declined, from 90 %

to 65.8 %, and it only took 43 years for these

biologically sustainable population to be

overexploited, and thus the fraction of the biological

sustainability declines. The proportions of the

unsustainable international fishery stock and

underfished stock were also changed. It manifests

that the percentage of underfished stock has declined,

to a lowest point in 2017, and the percentage of the

unsustainable fishery stock has expanded,

continuously.

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Figure 1: Global Trend in the State of the World’s Marine Fishery Stock, 1974-2017 (FAO, 2020).

Beside over-exploitation, by-catching is another

problem that happens on a day-to-day basis, and the

problem is encountered by fish not only on a local

scale but also worldwide. The scope of influence is

far more wide-ranging than people think. Normally,

by-catching happens in the circumstance where the

caught animals cannot be sold and kept, which

include fish, together with rare marine creature like

dolphins, seabirds, and whales. However, the

unintentional catches are not the only cases that make

the marine creature suffer from injuries or die after

they are caught and then discarded. By-catching also

happens when some marine species are encountering

fishing gears or vessels directly, which will cause the

mortality and injury of marine animals. It is of great

importance to take measures and to tackle the

problem of by-catching, due to the reason that by-

catching causes the loss of fecundity, and thus threat

the efforts of the authorities who aims at rebuilding

the fish stock (NOAA, 2021). Not to mention that the

damage it causes to the ecosystem and marine

creatures.

2.5 Collective Efforts of Government

and Public Organizations on

Passing International Agreement

and Law

International fishery stock is hard to control and

manipulate, due to the essence of which is straddling

and migration. Besides, it is of great importance to

conduct cooperation among different countries, to

utilize the fishery stock judiciously, so that the

resource can be sustained, and each country can gain

a better benefit, especially when it comes to the fish

stock with characteristics of trans-boundary,

straddling and frequently migratory [7]. To avoid

over-exploitation and thus the depletion of fishery

stock, public management should be considered as an

effective way. By passing international fishery laws

and subscribe international fishery agreement, the

behavior of fisherman can be forecast to some extent.

On the contrary, if there is no regulation in terms of

the exploitation of fishery stock, the fishery will be

consumed and run out at an accelerated speed, that is

consistent with the concept of “common tragedy”,

where non-existing, poorly defined or not

enforceable property rights lead to over-exploitation

of resources. It also describes the situation in which

self-interested agents deplete a resource through their

collective behaviors. By applying good management,

both biological and economical optimal can be

achieved. Collective efforts should be done in terms

of negotiating cautiously and then subscribing and

passing the international agreements and laws

regarding code of conduct for participating countries.

Figure 2: Annual Nominal Catches of Selected Species in

Antarctic Atlantic, Antarctic, Indian Ocean and Antarctic

Pacific (FAO, 2020).

Great achievent has been done by developed

countries, through the way of utilizing game theory,

the core of which is to strengthen international

cooperation, regulating and restricting code of

conduct. And in some parts of the world, the

consumption of the international fishery stock has

been improved, by popularizing the game theory and

punishing the participants who do not behave right.

Figure 2 shows some of the effectiveness in terms of

relieving overfishing of some international or

transboundary fishery poppulations. By researching

and studying the statistics published by FAO and the

Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic

Marine Living Resources jointly, the effectiveness of

implementing game theory and agreeing to and

signing international agreement and passing

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international is self-evident. It is conspicuous that

before 1990s, the number of annual nominal catches

of several selected species in southern ocean were

huge. It seems that the nineteenth century was a

turning point. The catches of selected species shown

by the legend have dropped, which lots of factors

contribute to. however, it is also consistent with the

fact that during the early 1990s, lots of international

conferences were held, in which several developed

countries and regions talked anout the fishery

resources status, and consequently passed several

international treaties laws, to make sure participating

countries behave well. under this circumstances, the

depletion amount of fishery stock dropped obviously.

Many public organizations actually contribute a

lot to improving the management situation of

international fishing resources. They facilitate the

international cooperation, advance regulatory

programs, and even bring about the international

engagement of many countries. NAFO, The

Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, or NOAA

mentioned above, are all working like catalyst in

helping improve the international cooperation in

terms of managing fishing resources.

2.6 On Monitoring and Regulating

Fishermen’s Behavior

To limit fishing effort, it is vital to switch the

economic incentive of fishermen thoroughly, the

initial incentive that each fisherman seeks to pursue

a maximum share of the catch actually facilitate the

competition among all fisherman and thus

undermined the effort of regulation, as it is conducted

in an EU-funded project (Asche et al., 2005), and the

previous regulation has not changed the fishery

stock’s essence of common property. When there is a

regulation that normalize fisherman’s behaviors, they

will always choose the option that is best for all

participants’ interest, the idea of which is also

consistent with game theory and Nash Equilibrium.

2.7 Game Theory of Redistribution

between Developed Countries and

Developing Countries

2.7.1 What Developed Countries Have Done

Common but differentiated responsibilities are here

for both developed countries and developing

countries in terms of managing natural resources

such as fishery stock. How much wild fish each

country should catch, how they should act when they

know or they do not know other countries’ choice,

and what actions one country should take after

another country do not obey the rules settled in an

international agreement, all of these questions can be

solved by using game theory, or in other words, Nash

Equilibrium. Furthermore, it is said that the current

fishery stock has been over-exploited, although it is

true, however, according to Smith, only small

fraction of fishery stock has been affected due to

selective fishing, which is also intensive. As a

consequence, it is worth a try to shift from the current

concentrated fishing species to species that are still

not exploited (Zhou et al., 2014).

Figure 3: World Marine Catch by Main Species Group in

2009, Million Tonnes and Percentage (FAO, 2011).

However, it is always said than done and great

tackles are here for the developing countries to

change their bhaviors. By nevagating the FAO

Review of the state of world marine fishery

resources, consumers have still been fishing selective

species. It shows clearly that from Figure 3, small

pelagics and large pelagics, together with

crustaceans, made up more than 50% international

fishery stock production and consumption. however,

chances are still there if developing countries can set

the developed counries as an example in terms of

engaging in international cooperation and

monitoring each other’s behavior such as whether

they exploit the international fishery stock

appropriately. This effort needs the practical action,

coalition, and collaboration from bilateral and

multilateral, or both the developing and developed

countries.

2.7.2 What Developing Countries Expected

As it is reported by FAO, in 2018, there is a huge

increase from the average previous three years,

which is up to 5.4 percent, and the total global

capture fisheries production has become the highest

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level in the history. People may then wonder where

that consumption comes from. Here is a list of top

consumption countries, they are China, Indonesia,

Peru, India and the Russian Federation, together with

the U.S. and Vietnam, most of which are developing

countries, and they consume around 50% total global

capture production (FAO, 2020).

For developing countries, the fishery stock can be

seen as an important food source highly in protein,

which can function as backup resources in

guaranteeing global food security (Zhou et al., 2014).

On the other hand, for developed countries, the

fishery stock in international common seas is more

different, they care more about tastes and

preferences. The change means a lot for the

developed countries. If this shift can be achieved, it

is possible gain a higher total fishery production

amount, and at the same time reduce damage to

ecosystems.

2.8 Future Development Areas

However, to solve the problem of over-exploitation

of international fishery stock and make it sustainable

from generation to generation, cooperation among

countries, finding the Nash Equilibrium, punishing

the betrayers and thus sustaining the “game” are not

enough. The solution to the international fishery

stock over-exploitation problem should also be

found. In addition to overfishing in global level, the

nature of the problem finally centers on the selected

fishery species, which means the fisherman always

harvest species with specific requirement (Zhou et

al., 2014).

3 CONCLUSION

To sum up, by applying game theory, some

enforcement of international agreements can be

done, and the potential cooperation barriers can be

identified. Besides, by applying game theory, the

behavior of participants can be understood better. It

helps facilitate the international cooperation in terms

of fishing resources management. Collective but

differentiated efforts should be made, from both

developing countries and developed countries. As far

as fishery resources are concerned, public

organizations act as catalysts and promote the

promulgation and signing of international laws and

agreements to capture and consume fishery

resources. The issue of how to manage international

fishery stock is more complex than expected, due to

the nature of marine creature that marine captures

migrate in various sea areas sometimes. To make

the fishery stock more sustainable, it is worth a try

that different countries to cooperate and find the

equilibrium that both sustain the fishery stock and at

the same time consume it to an extent that can meet

consumer needs. In addition, according to the game

theory, when there is an agreement among different

countries in terms of how much fishery stock they

plan to consume, it is often important to punish the

one that betray the agreement and serve for their own

best interest. It is the decision that makes the game

sustainable.

As for how the future research should be

conducted, it should focus on how developing

countries can engage more in the international game.

The developing countries rely on the fishing industry

to provide numerous job opportunities and

considerable incomes, as well as the basic daily

nutrient intake, which makes it tricky for developing

countries to engage in an international game whose

requirements are strict. Some shortcomings can be

improved and revised probably. Although the

document mentions some existing problems, such as

unregulated fishing, which hinders the sustainable

development of international fisheries, illegal and

unreported fishing activities are not included in the

document due to length constraints. These two

factors are also important and worthy of

investigation.

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