News from the South

IREPA, together with CEIS (Centre for international studies on Economics and Development) of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata", has recently completed a study on "Assessment of the economic impact of fiscal and re-distributive policies on fisheries". The report gives relevant results and recommendations. Current rules rely uniquely on structural policy for the achievement of two apparently opposed goals: further supporting regulation tools such as effort and catch limitation aimed at reducing invested capital, and granting subsidies to operators in order to support their structural measures. But capacity reduction, evaluated in terms of economical efficiency and not of invested capital (fleet), linked to sound evidences of a high taxation status, show inconsistency between law expectations and their theoretical reference apparatus. It has been proved that such a system cannot grant equipment renewal without physical capital growth.

IREPA, in collaboration with the IIM (Military Hydrographical Institute), has published the "Cartographic handbook of the Italian Marine Protected Areas". The manual contains a chart for each MPA and reports all the information related to the MPA: public and private services, references to the principal rules, and perimeters of the areas with specific restrictions. The project aims at providing a necessary tool for a correct management of the MPAs. A website (www.irepa.org/parchi) has been developed in order to receive suggestions and comments, and to disseminate the results.

IREPA has published its annual economic observatory on the productive structures of the Italian fishery ("Osservatorio Economico sulle strutture produttive della pesca in Italia, 1998"). The report contains a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the technical and economic parameters of the Italian fishing sector. The results have been presented at a regional level, as a consequence of the decentralisation of the political competence. Moreover, annexes with the statistical methodology of the sample survey and the most relevant national and European rules have been reported.

For more information of recent work carried out by IREPA please contact irepa@irepa.org. 

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