Analysis on technical efficiency and influencing factors of fishing vessels: a case study of Haizhou Bay, China

This paper used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure the technical efficiency of fishing vessels in Haizhou Bay, and then used the Tobit regression to define its influencing factors. This study shows that the overall fishing capacity utilization of fishing vessels at present is very low which indicates that there is a serious problem of waste of resources in Haizhou Bay. Specifically, the engine power, hull length, vessel age and annual days of fishing at sea are negatively correlated with the fishing vessels technical efficiency which means the decrease of the engine power, hull length, vessel age and annual days of fishing at sea will increase the fishing vessels technical efficiency. Moreover the captain's working seniority, fuel subsidies and total annual costs are positively correlated with the fishing vessels technical efficiency which means the decrease of working seniority, fuel subsidies and total annual cost will decrease the fishing vessels technical efficiency. However, only the p value of annual days of fishing at sea (p=0.007) and total annual costs (p=0.001) are significant at 5% significance level. Therefore, it may be concluded that annual days of fishing at sea and the total annual costs are the main impacting factors.