Fishing Behavior Across Space and Time

Models of fishing behavior rarely incorporate the complexities of marine ecosystems,multiple-stock harvest technologies, and regulations present in real world marinefisheries. We introduce a structural model of a multi-species, weak-output-disposabilityharvest technology. A latent target-cost-minimizing share vector is estimated to linkthe technology to a spatially and temporally heterogeneous fish stock. Data from theGulf of Mexico reef fish fishery is used to estimate the model. The results provide arobust characterization of harvest and discard behavior across space and time. Ourapproach considerably improves methods used to study fishing behavior and evaluatealternative fisheries management policies.[...]