Department of Economics Chair John Whitehead and Professor Ash Morgan served as presenters during the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET) conference in Aberdeen, Scotland July 11-15, 2016.
Every two years, leading fisheries economists and other social scientists, managers and industry representatives participate in the conference. The 2016 event was the eighteenth in the series. The event, themed "Challenging new frontiers in the global seafood sector – a Northern Enlightenment," provided a forum for participants to discuss all areas of the industry, from capture and farm to consumption.
IIFET provides an international forum for the exchange of research, information, and ideas on the economics of fisheries management, seafood trade, and aquaculture with a goal to advance the productive use of economic theory and analysis to answer critical questions surrounding the sustainable use of marine resources and to ensure future livelihoods of those who produce food from the sea.
Conference topics included Aquaculture Economics, Economics of Commercial and Recreational Fisheries, Seafood Markets, Trade and Consumption, Seafood Processing and Logistics, and Managing Marine Ecosystems and Competing Uses. The event also featured opportunities for economists and market researchers to network with business owners and policy makers and discuss how welldesigned research can help inform policy and business decisions.
Whitehead spoke July 12 on sustainability labels and other attributes in seafood purchase and consumption decisions. Morgan's session, other perspectives and consumption, took place on July 15.
Ash Morgan
Ash Morgan's research interests include health risk and food safety, consumer behavior, coastal resource management, non-market valuation and experimental economics. Much of his body of work is policy-based, providing stakeholders and end-users with empirical analyses for implementation in future policy decisions. He has published articles in many journals, including Land Economics, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, the Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics, Resource and Energy Economics, the Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Environmental and Resource Economics, the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, and Marine Resource Economics. Morgan was recently honored for his research endeavors by the Walker College of Business.
John Whitehead
John Whitehead has a keen interest in water quality and environmental economics, and through in-depth experience with governing bodies, including the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Commerce, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, and the American Fisheries Society, has improved water quality awareness in our region and country. His research interests include finding better ways to attach monetary values to environmental and natural resources for use in benefit-cost analyses (e.g., sea-level rise, recreational fishing). Whitehead has published more than 100 journal articles and is an Associate Editor at Journal of Environmental Management and Marine Resource Economics.
