Antler, S.D., "A Plantation Fishery at Newfoundland 1800-1840," Atlantic Canada Economic Association Papers, 3, 1974, 143-67. Analyzes the reasons for the decline of the resident boatkeepers as forces in the Newfoundland fishery following legal decisions in 1840.
Gilchrist, J., "Explorations in Enterprise: The Newfoundland Fishery c. 1497-1677," in D.S. Macmillan, ed., Canadian Business History, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1972, 7-26.
Gill, G.T., English Enterprise in Newfoundland, 1577-1660, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1969.
Gordon, H.S.,"The Economic Theory of a Common-property Resource: The Fishery," Journal of Political Economy, 62, February 1954, 124-42. A classic article on the subject of property rights and how their absence leads to rent dissipation and exhaustion of a resource: the "tragedy of the commons" thesis. (But see also Ommer, 1981, below.)
Innis, H.A., "An Introduction to the Economic History of the Maritimes, including Newfoundland and New England", in M.Q. Innis, ed., Essays in Canadian Economic History, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1956, 27-42. Stresses the importance of technology in explaining differences in the French and British fisheries. Notes the dependence of staples on efficient transportation and the role of policy.
Innis, H.A., "The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Fishery in Newfoundland," in M.Q. Innis, ed., Essays in Canadian Economic History, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1956, 43-61. Considers various forces leading to decline of the Spanish fishery in the 17th century such as distance, increasing trade volume, rising prices in Spain.
Innis, H.A., The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1954. One of the classic studies in the staples tradition. In his preface Innis writes: "In a region with the extensive waterways which characterize the northern part of North America economic development is powerfully directed toward concentration on staples for export to more highly industrialized regions. It is not too much to say that European civilization left its impress on North America through its demand for staple products and that these in turn affected the success of empires projected from Europe. The author's study of the fur trade is therefore followed by a study of the fishing industry in the hope that it will throw light on the significance of that industry for the economic, political and social organization of North America and Europe." p.ix.
Ommer, R.E, " ‘All the Fish of the Post’": Resource Property Rights and Development in a Nineteenth Century Inshore Fishery", Acadiensis, 10, Spring 1981, 107-43. Suggests that the Scott Gordon model which relates the ocean fishery to a common property resource is inadequate for analyzing the cod fishery of 18th-19th centuries because merchants were able to create property rights over the resource by virtue of their ability to control access to it by both labour and capital. Rents, consequently, were not dissipated and the industry was made viable.
Ryan, S., "Fishery to Colony: A Newfoundland Watershed 1793-1815," Acadiensis, 12, Spring 1983, 34-52. With the end of war in 1815 Newfoundland had been transformed from a fishery based around an island to a colony based on a fishery due to the high demand for saltfish and heavy local investment in the fishery and shipbuilding.
Ryan, S., "The Newfoundland Salt Cod Trade in the Nineteenth Century," in J.K. Hiller, and P. Neary, eds., Newfoundland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1980, 40-66.
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