Is objective data an appropriate replacement for subjective data: a fisheries management case study

Data used to model decision-making behaviour commonly comes from one of two sources, subjective data or objective data. Subjective data is generally based on users experience of a good, whereas objective data may come from a range of source including scientific measures and management/expert opinion. The use of either source of data requires a trade-off; subjective data is theoretically grounded as it is the user’s perception used to model the user’s behaviour, whereas, objective data is often easier to collect, less costly and time-consuming. In practise, the relative ease of collecting objective data often means that it is favoured in both the economic literature and policy implementation.

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