Dynamic and static approaches to mixed good management: The case of minke whales in the Northeast Atlantic

Whales have private and public good characteristics. A dynamic model, developed to capture the complexities of managing such a resource, yields optimal steady-state estimates suggesting that the current stock of minke whales in the Northeast Atlantic is below the steady-state optimum. The dynamics of the optimal approach to the steady state are consistent with drastic measures such as the current moratorium on commercial whaling. These findings are not consistent with previous research in this field. The discrepancies should be attributed to the inclusion of non-use values in the present paper. Finally, we compare the outcomes of the dynamic model with the results of a simple static model. We find that the latter consistently errs on the side of excessive exploitation because of its failure to account for the impact of current harvesting on future benefits and costs.