Commercial fisheries are often presumed to contribute meaningfully to local economies, despite a lack of supporting empirical evidence. We address this gap by estimating local economic effects from commercial fishing activity in Alaska. Using exogenous variation in fish stocks and prices, we find that a 10% increase in a community's annual resident fishery earnings leads to a corresponding 0.7% increase in resident income. This translates to an increase of 1.54 dollars in total income for each dollar increase in fisheries earnings. Our results demonstrate the potential for local benefits from commercial fishing through direct, indirect, and induced effects into other sectors. Moreover, our findings demonstrate the importance of local resource ownership for generating benefits for local economies.

尽管缺乏支持性的经验证据，但通常认为商业渔业对当地经济有重要贡献。我们通过估计阿拉斯加商业捕鱼活动对当地经济的影响来弥补这一差距。使用鱼类种群和价格的外生变化，我们发现社区居民常年渔业收入增加10％，居民收入相应增加0.7％。这意味着渔业收入每增加1美元，总收入就会增加1.54美元。我们的结果表明，通过直接，间接和诱发影响进入其他部门的商业性捕鱼活动可在当地带来收益。此外，我们的研究结果证明了当地资源所有权对于为当地经济创造利益的重要性。