The impact of collective use rights on share contracts: the case of the Extractive Artisanal Regime (RAE) in Chilean hake fisheries

Share contracts are the dominant remuneration system in artisanal fisheries. Introducing regulations based on collective use rights may affect the way profits are distributed. The literature on the effect of regulatory reform on factor income distribution, however, is scarce. In this paper, we look at differences in the implementation of the Extractive Artisanal Regime in Chilean hake artisanal fisheries to test its effect on share contracts. We estimated a switching regression model using census data to calculate the average treatment effect. Our results show that crewmembers in communities regulated by some form of collective use rights receive, on average, 6 per cent more of total net incomes compared to those regulated by a limited access with global quota regime. Differences in the relation between crew size and labor rewards, as well as in the negotiating power of crewmembers under different regimes, may explain the results.