Developing a Multi-Regional Social Accounting Matrix (MRSAM) for Southwest Alaska Fisheries

This report describes the procedures followed to construct the 10-region MRSAM. The 10-regions in the MRSAM include the six SWAK BCAs plus the rest of Alaska (RAK), West Coast [Washington, Oregon and California (WOC)], the rest of the U.S. (RUS), and a “region” representing at-sea catcher-processors and motherships operating in SWAK-region waters (Western Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska). Specifically, this report (i) provides a short overview of SAM and SAM models, (ii) explains data requirements for developing an MRSAM, (iii) briefly describes the data collected for SWAK fisheries and other data used to construct the MRSAM, (iv) describes in detail how BCA-level fisheries information is estimated from regional (i.e., SWAK)-level information, and (v) explains how the MRSAM will be used in a follow-up project to develop regional economic models such as MRSAM models and multi-regional computable general equilibrium (MRCGE) models. Results from these models to be developed based on the MRSAM data will be useful for fishery managers and others who are interested in understanding the economic impacts of fishery management actions or natural exogenous shocks (such as climate change) on fishing-dependent communities in the SWAK region and elsewhere. 2020 NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) AFSC (Alaska Fisheries Science Center) Submitted https://doi.org/10.25923/3yz5-y179 Public Domain 1864