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Considering commercial fisheries, this paper suggests that property rights, or lack thereof, better be replaced by clearly defined user rights, widely held and well distributed. By assumption, their effective use is conditional, seasonal, and paid for - or valued - via direct deals or double auctions. Such auctions have efficiency properties akin to those of competitive equilibrium. Hence auctions may serve to restore or secure substantial parts of the resource rent. Residual parts will remain though, with fishermen who supply oligopolistic product markets. Thus, the model, developed below, marries a perfect market, in user rights, to a strategic game, in outputs. Broadly, Walrasian exchange of allowances connects to a Cournot oligopoly. This way, complaints about the fairness and legitimacy of outcomes can be reduced to complaints about the distribution, taxation or type of user rights.
Key words: Fisheries management, non-cooperative games, user rights, resource rent.
