The Fisheries Economics Research Unit is a leader in the field of fisheries economics, both in terms of research and the collection and curation of global fisheries data. In the near future we intend to present this data on the web in interactive applications that highlight trends in the fisheries sector around the globe. For now, we are happy to share our data with potential collaborators who may contact us at web@feru.org. See below for a brief introduction to the data sources we have available.

Cost of fishing

Lead by Vicky Lam, this global database of fishing costs is the first of it’s kind. Still in early development, construction of the database is documented in a working paper (Lam et al., 2010) that will be published soon.

Employment

A global database of fishing industry employment, this is another work in progress lead by Lydia Teh.

Ex-vessel fish prices

The most comprehensive database on this subject, the data considers the price at first sale to be an ex-vessel price. This database was constructed and documented by Sumaila et al. (2007) and has been used as the de facto standard source of price data among global fisheries researchers.

Retail fish prices and consumption

As part of her Master’s work, this dataset is currently being constructed by Liesbeth van der Meer.

Subsidies

The world’s largest database of government financial transfers to the fishing industry. The database covers more than 150 maritime countries/political entities and 25 categories of government funded programs. Construction and application of the original database is documented in a UBC Fisheries Centre Research Report and an updated version is published in the Journal of Bioeconomics.

Trade

A record of import and export of fish products, this database is headed by Wilf Swartz and has been used in several peer-reviewed publications.