ECS seeks a full-time, remote
Fisheries Economist to support the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC).
This position will support NOAA Fisheries' need to develop port-level (zip-code-level) economic impact models for 20 major fishing dependent ports in Southwest Alaska.
This project is for an economist who has experience with Input-Output (IO), social accounting matrix (SAM) modeling, and Alaska fisheries.
Project Details:Most regional economic models developed for North Pacific fisheries are designed to assess the economic impacts for the whole state (i.e., Alaska) or an administrative region (e.g., the Southeast Alaska region). While these models are designed to calculate the impacts of fishery management actions on relatively large regions, they may not accurately represent impacts on smaller, fishing-dependent areas such as boroughs and census areas (BCAs) or "fishing communities." Therefore, results from these large models may be less useful for fishery managers, policymakers, and other parties interested in illustrating impacts on specific communities, especially ones with unique economic structures.
To address this limitation, several years ago, an AFSC economist developed a 10-region multi-regional social accounting matrix (10MRSAM) model for Alaska fisheries based on an economic survey of Southwest Alaska (SWAK) fisheries. This is a significant advancement in economic impact modeling for North Pacific fisheries. Unlike previous studies that can compute only national or state-level economic impacts, this model can calculate the economic impacts for smaller geographical areas (boroughs or census areas). The 10MRSAM model has been utilized for computing the economic impacts of various policies and external shocks to Alaska fisheries. Very recently, the model was used to evaluate the short-term economic impacts of the recent losses in Alaska fisheries (https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/economic-snapshot-shows-alaska-seafood-industry-suffered-18-billion-loss-2022-2023#). AFSC economists developed a web-based version of this model for public use (https://nwecon.psmfc.org/).
Although the 10MRSAM model is a significant improvement, fishery managers are often concerned with the economic impacts of their management actions on smaller geographical areas such as cities or ports that depend on fisheries. This requires the development of port-level or zip-code-level economic impact models. No existing study has yet developed models designed to estimate impacts on individual fishing-dependent ports in Alaska. Thus, the proposed project will extend the previous 10MRSAM project to examine the economic impacts for finer (smaller) geographical areas that are frequently the subject of interest for fisheries managers.
Tasks to be Performed:- Develop a social accounting matrix (SAM) model for each of the 20 fishing ports.
- Estimate the ex-vessel and wholesale revenues for each major species landed/processed in each port.
- Develop an economic impact model for each port.
- Calculate the economic impacts of a hypothetical change in harvest for each port using the model.
- Prepare a NOAA tech memo.
Deliverables:- 20 social accounting matrices (SAMs)
- Ex-vessel and wholesale revenues for each species and each port.
- Economic impact model for each port.
- Economic impacts of the hypothetical harvest changes.
- NOAA Fisheries tech memo.
A government-furnished laptop will be provided.
Salary Range: $75,000 - $90,000
General Description of Benefits
- Master's in applied economics with experience in input-output (IO) modeling.
- Experience with economic impact modeling for fisheries.
- Expertise with IMPLAN software.
