Countries exploiting transboundary natural resources face strong incentives to over-exploit. This basic economic insight has been validated empirically where numerous resources such as water, forests, game, and fisheries are found to be in worse condition than those completely contained in single nations. Attempts to solve this challenge through cross-country cooperation have been largely unsuccessful because competitive extraction is often more attractive than adhering to cooperative agreements. Focusing on the fishery, we explore the game-theoretic economics of an alternative to cooperative arrangements, called a transboundary marine protected area (TMPA), which straddles both countries’ waters. We derive the conditions under which it can improve profits and stock biomass, even in the presence of individually-rational non-cooperation across countries. Strikingly, we find that well-designed TMPAs have the potential to completely overcome non-cooperation across countries; this result is strongest for low growth rate species. A TMPA can earn higher harvest benefits for both countries, increase stocks in both countries, and in many cases, can even reproduce the fully cooperative outcome.

开采跨界自然资源的国家面临过度开采的强烈动机。这一基本的经济见解已通过经验进行了验证，其中发现许多资源（如水，森林，野味和渔业）的状况要比单个国家中完全包含的状况更糟。通过跨国合作解决这一挑战的尝试在很大程度上没有成功，因为竞争性提取通常比遵守合作协议更具吸引力。着眼于渔业，我们探讨了合作安排的另一种博弈论经济学，即跨界海洋保护区（TMPA），它横跨两国水域。我们得出了可以改善利润和库存生物量的条件，即使在国家之间存在个别理性的不合作的情况下。令人惊讶的是，我们发现精心设计的TMPA有潜力完全克服国家间的不合作；对于低生长速率的物种，此结果最强。TMPA可以为两国带来更高的收成效益，增加两国的库存，在许多情况下甚至可以再现完全合作的成果。