Do global competitiveness factors impact the marine sustainability practices? An empirical evidence from fisheries sector

Abstract

According to the research on fisheries, there are two main trade‐offs between these sustainability pillars. First, a fisheries industry's developing ecological health diminishes economic gains for fishermen. Second, individual fishermen's financial success undercuts fisheries communities' social goals. This paper aims to investigate the dynamic impact of global competitiveness on the sustainability of the fisheries industry in 27 European countries by considering the production of fisheries, enabling environments, ecosystems for innovation, market size, human capital, and economic growth between 1990 and 2022. At higher quantiles, the findings showed a strong positive association between enabling environment and fisheries sustainability by adopting MMQR with fixed effects, the new method of moments quantile regression. Additionally, in EU27 nations, the impact of human capital was positive and substantial from the first to ninth quantiles. Notably, the findings show that the EU14 developed nations have a greater level of development than the EU13 underdeveloped countries, which considerably benefits fisheries sustainability. Market size and economic growth were also found to condense fisheries sustainability in EU14 developed and EU13 developing countries, supporting the growth hypothesis for fisheries‐producing countries. Innovation ecosystem was found to increase fisheries sustainability across all quantiles. Notably, the findings show that the significant beneficial impact of the innovation ecosystem, market size, and economic development on the sustainability of fisheries is more significant in the emerging nations of the EU13 than in the developed countries of the EU14. With effective and environmentally friendly technology, policymakers may boost market competitiveness in the EU14 and EU13 countries and advance sustainable development objectives.