domestic commercial fisheries (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1976).

These management plans are to be constructed from the best available

scientific data and directed toward achieving an "optimum yield" from

all fisheries. While the precise economic and biological definition of

optimum yield is still unclear, the necessity to develop empirical

fishery models describing the interrelationships between relevant

economic and biological agents is clear. The primary objective of this

study is to provide an econometric model of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish

Fishery to serve as an analytical framework within which a wide variety

of management questions may be analyzed. Specific objectives include:

 1. Development of a conceptual and empirical fishing power
 function for vessels operating in the Gulf of Mexico
 Reef Fish Fishery.

 2. Specification and estimation of aggregate catch equations
 for each participating state in the GMRFF. Both produc-
 tive interdependence between states and the unobserva-
 bility of the fish stock will be explicitly considered by
 means of stochastic specifications.

 3. Identification of the price structure of the reef fishery
 and estimation of a system of dockside price equations.

 4. Development of a framework within which the concept of
 fishing power and the estimated catch and price equations
 can be integrated to analyze economic efficiency in the
 Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Fishery.

 The results of this analysis will provide valuable information to these

 individuals charged with the responsibility to make management decisions

 in the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Fishery. Furthermore, it is hoped that

 the results of this study will further the state of the art in the

 statistical specification and estimation of empirical models describing

 production in an ocean fishery.