New Research by Mixon Investigates Behavior of California's Surf Gangs

A number of prior economic studies have examined both the common property or open access nature of surf breaks and the concomitant behavior of the surfers who exploit them. Turner College economics professor Frank Mixon has in the past contributed to the formal modeling of the decision by local surfers to form coalitions (i.e., surf gangs) in order to prohibit access to higher-quality surf breaks by non-locals, whose presence serves to crowd the break and diminish the utility it is able to provide surfers. This prior research emphasizes the point that local surfers feel that they effectively “own” a surf break after surfing it for years, and, therefore, display varying degrees of hostility to nonlocals who try to surf their prized spots, a behavior commonly referred to as “localism.”

     A new study by Mixon and Richard Cebula of the University of Tennessee utilizes the latest data on California’s surf breaks to re-examine whether or not these new data support the finding in prior research that the degree of localism displayed by California’s surf gangs is a positive function of the quality and congestion of surf breaks. The study, scheduled to appear in a future issue of American Behavioral Scientist, goes further by also exploring whether the presence of sharks at a surf break, and whether surf break seasonality, measured as the number of months each year that weather and climatic conditions allow a surf break to be accessed, impact the degree of localism displayed by California's surf gangs. Sharks represent a natural hazard at a surf break, but one that other research on how surf break knowledge possessed by local surfers is often an important resource in assisting conservationists preserve surf break ecosystems suggests may be more easily avoided by local surf gangs than by nonlocals. Analysis by Mixon and Cebula of data from 134 California surf breaks reveals that localism rises with both surf break quality and congestion, and that shorter surfing seasons lead to greater localism effort. On the other hand, the presence of sharks is associated with higher degrees of localism, a result the authors suspect may result from difficulty in disentangling the factors, such as reef and rocks, that make good surf breaks and good shark habitats.