The International Economic Association (IEA) was founded under the auspices of UNESCO in September 1950. Each year since then a round table has been held with papers and discussion centred upon a single major topic or branch of the discipline. Succeeding conferences have been devoted to the following subjects: Long-Term International Balance (1950), Monopoly and Competition (1951), The Business Cycle in the Post-War World (1952), The Determinants of Economic Progress (1953), Wage Determination (1954), The Economics of International Migration (1955), and The Economics of Fisheries (1956).
The last Round Table on the economic problems of fisheries was organized at the request of, and in collaboration with, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Ralph Turvey, Reader in Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) undertook to form the programme and, in consultation with Mr F. Popper, of FAO, to find experts willing to contribute papers. These papers were circulated well in advance among the participants and the meeting was held in Rome in the summer of 1956, immediately after the first Congress of IEA.
The background papers of this Round Table are printed in this volume, together with a short résumé of the discussion, prepared by Mr Jack Wiseman, also of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Since the economic problems of fisheries have hitherto been relatively neglected by the economists, it is hoped that the studies presented here will stimulate further research in this important field.