The role of the capture fisheries and aquaculture sectors in the Korean national economy: An input-output analysis

The aquaculture industry can meet food security needs and reduce the pressure on marine resources. The expansion of aquaculture allows the fisheries industry to restructure from hunting to farming, and thus drives the need for an analysis of the economic impacts of aquaculture industry in consideration of the interdependence between capture fisheries and aquaculture industry. This study attempts to analyze the economic impacts of two fishery sectors using input-output (I-O) analysis, with specific application to Korea. To this end, this study applies the I-O models to the Korean I-O tables generated by the Bank of Korea, paying particular attention to the two fishery sectors in Korea, considering them as exogenous, and then determining their impacts. Specifically, the production-inducing effects, employment-inducing effects, supply shortage effects, sectoral price effects, forward linkage effects, and backward linkage effects of the two fishery sectors are presented over the period 1995-2010. For example, the production-inducing effect of a KRW 1.0 change in fisheries investment is larger in the petroleum and chemical sectors than in other sectors. Moreover, the aquaculture sector has larger employment-inducing effects than the capture fisheries. Finally, the potential uses of the results of this analysis are presented from the perspective of policy instruments, and policy implications are discussed.