Ocean Acidification and the Economic Impacts on the Molluscs and Crustaceans Markets: A Worldwide Application

In the paper, we take an economic perspective in order to assess the impact of ocean acidification (OA) on the aquaculture sector. We define a simple microeconomic model, where society is represented by a representative consumer of aquaculture products, a representative producer of aquaculture products and a policy maker. OA affects production and yields are the key variables that affect consumer, producer and policy maker's objective functions. Under such framework, we simulate changes in the future yields (2010) of mollusks and crustaceans in the top 10 markets worldwide. Results show that OA can both generate gains or losses, according to the biological scenario we embrace for producing predictions. Inaction, adaptation and mitigation policies are finally discussed.