each state. Any attempt to derive an optimum input composition for a

state based on firm level decision criteria would be meaningless.

 The exogenous levels of fishing power used in obtaining the catch

constraints are given by the 1975 levels of average crew size and

average vessel size in each state (Appendix B, Tables B-7 and B-8).

Fixing the fishing power components serves to locate the catch equations

in each state since these components are incorporated into the intercept

term. The adjusted catch constraint intercepts with fixed fishing power

are given in Table 10. The form these adjusted intercept estimates take

in the actual model are the antilogs of those presented in the table.

The effect that fishing power has on the catch constraints can be seen

by comparing the adjusted intercepts to the unadjusted intercepts. It

can immediately be seen that the adjusted intercepts for Alabama and

Mississippi are larger than Florida's, whereas Florida's unadjusted

intercept dominates all other states' intercepts. This occurrence

reflects the greater fishing power of vessels in Alabama and Mississippi

relative to Florida vessels. Florida vessels, in fact, have the

smallest average fishing power per vessel of all of the Gulf of Mexico

Reef Fish Fishery states.


 Maximum Economic Yield

 The preceding sections have served to define the individual compo-

nents of the empirical Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Fishery model. As

stated above, the estimation of catch levels and vessel numbers in each

state which corresponds to maximum economic yield requires the simulta-

neous maximization of the summation of the state profit functions con-

strained by the state catch equations. The Lagrangian form of the