relates back to data limitations and the utilization of the "price" of

reef fish as the dependent variable. Although grouper and red snapper

are very similar products at dockside, they tend to move through dif-

ferent markets both with respect to type as well as location. Further,

as evidenced by Appendix F, there are also several marketing levels

through which these species pass in moving from dockside to retail.

Thus, any attempts to infer income flexibilities for reef fish would be

necessarily crude. In an effort to avoid such potentially misleading

inference and still capture the effects of such factors, the use of a

time trend variable was employed.


Choice of Estimator for the Price Equation


 As with the catch equations, the choice of the appropriate esti-

mator for equations (67) and (68) is oriented toward obtaining desirable

statistical properties for the parameter estimates. Choosing the

appropriate estimator largely rests on the stochastic specifications of

the disturbance terms in equations (67) and (68). The delineation of

the price equations on a state basis is done on the basis of recorded

data rather than on the basis of some other economic factors which would

serve to delineate the appropriate cross-sectional units. In relation

to the economic structure of price determination in the GMRFF, such

division of units on the basis of geographic boundaries is admittedly

arbitrary with respect to the actual economic structure of the GMRFF.

Thus, a considerable degree of contemporaneous correlation in the dis-

turbances of the price equations is anticipated. The disturbance

specification for the price equations in equations (67) and (68) is

given by