Subsidies—Help or Hurt? A Study from Vietnamese Fisheries

Abstract

Subsidies are part of the set of management tools that governments apply to modernize their fishing fleets and enable them to engage in offshore and international fisheries. Research has shown that subsidies often lead to overcapacity and overfishing, resulting in the depletion of fish stocks. A few studies, however, have found some positive effects for particular subsidies. In this paper, we investigate a credit-linked subsidy scheme in Vietnam, which seems to be justified on the basis of economic, social, and environmental considerations. Both propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression methods are employed for analysis. The results show that the subsidies have had a positive effect on fishermen’s profitability, mainly because of increased revenue rather than reduced cost. However, the subsidies have benefited the owners of only the biggest vessels, and inefficiency in subsidized vessels may threaten resources and profitability in the long term.