Analysis on technical efficiency and influencing factors of fishing vessels: a case study of Haizhou Bay, China

Abstract

This paper used the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure the technical efficiency of fishing vessels in Haizhou Bay, and then used the Tobit regression to define its influencing factors. This study shows that the overall fishing capacity utilization of fishing vessels at present is very low which indicates that there is a serious waste of resources problem in Haizhou Bay. Specifically, the engine power, hull length, vessel's age and annual days of fishing on the sea are negatively correlated with the fishing vessels technical efficiency which means the decrease of the engine power, hull length, vessel's age and annual days of fishing on the sea will increase the fishing vessels technical efficiency, and the captain's working seniority, fuel subsidies and total annual cost are positively correlated with the fishing vessels technical efficiency which means the decrease of working seniority, fuel subsidies and total annual cost will decrease the fishing vessels technical efficiency. However, only the P value of annual days of fishing on the sea (P=0.007) and total annual cost (P=0.001) are significant at 5% significance level. Therefore, this paper can concluded that annual days of fishing on the sea and the total annual cost are the main impacting factors.