Martin D. Smith

Bio and Research:

I study the economics of marine resources, including fisheries, marine ecosystems, and beaches. I am particularly interested in combining econometrics with bioeconomic modeling to analyze fisheries management. In a broader sense, my work strives to understand human impacts on our natural resource base and the dynamics of these coupled human-natural systems. My past work focuses on analyzing spatially explicit policies like marine reserves. To this end, I model the spatial decisions of individual fishing vessels and link empirical estimates to a dynamic and spatially explicit population model. I use the coupled model to simulate the impacts of forming marine reserves on the California sea urchin fishery. In current work, I am adapting these techniques to study the economic impacts of marine reserves for fisheries management in the Gulf of Mexico reef fish complex. Other current projects include 1) analyzing the dynamic search strategies of individual commercial fishermen; 2) assessing risk tradeoffs in fishing across physical and financial domains; 3) using portfolio theory to guide ecosystem-based management of fisheries 4) estimating the value of reductions in estuarine pollution with a bioeconomic predator-prey model ; and 5) empirical modeling of beach nourishment decisions and the dynamics of coastline change. I am currently an associate editor of the journal Marine Resource Economics.