Characterisation of fish species based on ex-vessel prices and its management implications: An application to the Spanish Mediterranean

• We analyse how the price of fish species is affected by different factors.
• The species analysed are relevant fresh fish products in the Spanish Mediterranean.
• Data come from 2.2 million daily ex-vessel transactions for the period 2000–2013.
• Results help to characterise the fish species and different consumption behaviours.
• The economic crisis has lead to a price decrease of the most expensive species.

Fish species are often characterised from biological and ecological perspectives in fisheries studies, but seldom from a price or economic perspective. Price data is useful to determine how markets and consumers perceive the different fish products, which may be relevant from a fisheries management perspective to forecast demand changes, and consequently, predict when fishing effort is directed to more expensive fish products. In order to understand which factors determine the formation of fish prices, we analysed more than 2.2 million daily ex-vessel (first-sale) transactions concerning the eight most relevant fresh fish products in the Spanish Mediterranean market for the period 2000–2013: hake, red mullets, sole, red shrimp, Norway lobster, sardine, anchovy and round sardinella. These fresh fish products span a wide range of prices, from the relatively cheap small pelagic fishes that are produced in large quantities and fetch ex-vessel prices below 1 €/kg to the expensive crustaceans fetching prices higher than 25–30 €/kg. The analysis of a wide range of species from a large data set allows to obtain reliable conclusions on the evolution of the fresh seafood consumption. Additionally, the price of seafood species depends significantly on the economic cycle; there is a general price decrease in most of the species analysed due to the current economic crisis. Because of the large degree of market integration in EU fish markets, conclusions from this study could be extended to other countries.