In fisheries, as well as in other natural resource-based industries, there is difference between profit and rent. The former is a basic indicator for gauging the business performance of firms, while the latter is for the evaluation of the contribution of resources and industry to economic welfare. Put simply, resource economists are mainly concerned about rent, including pure resource rent and producer surplus (intra-marginal rent [IMR]). In other hand, business economists are mainly concerned about the profitability of the firms comprising the industry. In the academic literature, there are not always clear definitions of the profit and rent concepts and their use in actual analyses. This article will mainly discuss and clarify differences and similarities in profit and rent concepts. In the classical fisheries economic model with one-dimensional homogenous effort and a constant cost per unit of effort, no rent exists in open-access equilibrium. A simple change in this model, for example by introducing heterogeneous effort, opens it to the existence of rent, specifically IMR, at open-access equilibrium. We estimated resource rent and profit from the data using SNA(system of national accounts) and accounting data methods. RR(resource rent) is composed of value-added, compensation of employees, consumption of fixed capital and normal profit in SNA. RR(resource rent) is composed of EBT, Depreciation of fishing rights, financial costs of fishing rights and calculated interests on equity in accounting data methods. We found that the result of two methods is equal. RR is composed of excess profit, rent and interest expenses. In Korea, the magnitude of RR and profit is not different significantly.

We try to test the pecking order theory of Korean fisheries firm’s capital structure using debt capacity. At first, we estimate the debt capacity as the probability of assigning corporate bond rating from credit-rating agencies. We use logit regression model to estimate this probability as a proxy of debt capacity. The major results of this study are as follows. Firstly, we can confirm the fisheries firm’s financing behaviour which issues new debt securities for financial deficit. Empirical test of SSM model indicates that the higher probability of assigning corporate bond rating, the higher the coefficient of financial deficit. Especially, high probability group follows this result exactly. Therefore, the pecking order theory of fisheries firm’s capital structure applies well for high probability group which means high debt capacity. It also applies for medium and low probability group, but their significances are not good. Secondly, the most of fisheries firms in high probability group issue new debt securities for their financial deficit. Low probability group’s fisheries firms also issue new debt securities for their financial deficit within the limit of their debt capacity, but beyond debt capacity they use equity financing for financial deficit. Therefore, the pecking order theory on debt capacity come into existence well in high probability group.