Global literature review - Economy

Several sources provide macro-economic analyses that touch upon dried fish value chains in significant ways, presenting notable overlaps with the themes of globalization and food history discussed earlier. As noted above, global trade in salt cod has had a particularly important role in shaping colonial ties between Europe and the New World [1] and geopolitical relations in Atlantic Europe and Iceland [2]. Other research has addressed the role of dried fish trade in European settlement, investigating topics such as how proximity to fish and salt resources shaped settlement patterns in Ancient Greece [3]; how fish trade contributed to Greek colonization of the Black Sea region [4]; how dried fish production in the Viking Age laid the foundations for a global trade [5]; or how peripheral regions, such as Lusitania, came to be integrated into the Roman Empire through fish trade [6]. We note the absence of a comparable literature exploring the role of fish trade in the settlement of Asia or Africa.

Few explicitly macroeconomic analyses of the contemporary fish trade specifically examine the role of dried fish. As one example, Asche and Hannesson [7] draw on trade and price data to explore how fish processors and importers in Europe and North America respond to price fluctuations by shifting production between salted, dried, frozen, or fresh fish value chains. The findings of this study demonstrate significant differences in the elasticity of production in different countries, however, suggesting that the structure of national fish processing industries can influence global market relations more strongly than supply and demand. This interpretation is supported by the more qualitative findings reported by authors who have described impacts of consumer behaviour on upstream actors in transnational value chains. It has been reported that changing consumer preferences and ideas of "quality" in Spain, for example, have directly impacted salted fish suppliers in Norway and Iceland -- yet while Icelandic producers successfully adapted, Norwegian industrial suppliers generally have not [8].

Some interesting work on dried fish trade has been framed as technical studies for business, such as a report from the US Department of Commerce [9] investigating opportunities for processing of American bycatch as dried seafood for export to Asia, or a study by Infopeche providing advice to West African artisanal fishers on how they can access "ethnic" markets in the Global North [10].