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Somatic growth in fishes often varies through time. Despite this, most stock assessments either fix or estimate a time-invariant growth relationship because estimating time-varying growth parameters can be data intensive and subject to multiple sources of bias. Additionally, estimates of growth are often confounded with estimates of selectivity, particularly if selectivity is also time varying. Incorporating empirical weight-at-age (EWAA) information into assessments is a little-studied alternative that accounts for time-varying growth, but foregoes fixing or estimating growth and length–weight relationships. However, this method requires annual measures of fish weights at each age, and missing values must therefore be interpolated. We used Stock Synthesis in a simulation-testing framework to compare the effect of estimating a single time-invariant growth curve, time-varying growth curves, and incorporating EWAA …