Pirates and Fishermen: Is Less Patrolling Always Bad?

• Main Author: GUHA, Brishti
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
• Subjects: Pirates; Fishermen; Patrolling; Multiple equilibria; Policy responses; Behavioral Economics
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1346; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/2345/viewcontent/Pirates_Fishermen_afv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Motivated by the Somali fishermen–pirates, I explore the time allocation decision of potential pirates between piracy and an alternative non-violent occupation, fishing, when the returns of both piracy and fishing are sensitive to patrolling intensity. For a range of parameters, the static model yields multiple equilibria, an “efficient” one with no patrolling and low piracy, a less efficient equilibrium with intermediate levels of both piracy and patrolling and a highly inefficient high-patrolling high-piracy equilibrium. Analyzing the dynamic analogue, I obtain the surprising result that sufficiently low patrolling can be a good strategy.