This paper is designed to "set the stage" for the Special Session on Game Theory and Fisheries. It traces the origins of the application of game theory to fisheries economics, noting that, for the first quarter of a century after the publication of H.Scott Gordon's 1954 seminal article, the role of game theory in fisheries economics was all but non-existent. The coming of the EEZ regime, and the emergence of the internationally shared fish stock problem, forced the hands of fisheries economists compelling them to bring game theory to bear, since strategic interaction between and among fishing states sharing the aforementioned stocks lay at the heart of the problem. That problem became increasingly complex over the ensuing decades requiring, in turn, the application of increasingly sophisticated game theoretic models. The question now concerns the relevance of game theory to the management of intra-EEZ fishery resources. The paper argues that game theory is in fact highly relevant, but that the application of game theory to the management of intra-EEZ fishery resources lags far, far behind the application of game theory to international fisheries. The paper goes on to explore this "new frontier", introducing such concepts as multilevel cooperation.
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