3. Methodologies

While providing a broad overview of the Philippine milkfishresource system, this paper will examine questions of technical and economic efficiency on the one hand, and of equity on the other. Each of the sub-systems of procurement, transformation, and delivery will be examined in turn, with the emphasis on efficiency considerations. A common element will be to examine to what extent the system's efficiency departs from the predictions of certain behavioural assumptions and economic models of perfect competition, whereby factors of production (and other "creators" of utility) are rewarded according to their contribution to the total value of output. The model is useful because it allows predictions as to the expected relationship among costs and prices in all these sub-systems. The analysis that follows contains examination of both technical and price formation efficiencies in the subsystems.The milkfish resource system presents interesting and challenging avenues for analysis. Elements of fisheries resource economics, microeconomic analysis of production, and spatial economic theory are all drawn on to complete the evaluation of the resource system.Data for this study are taken primarily from cross-sectional data collected by the authors in various field surveys beginning in 1977. Time-series and secondary data on the milkfish resource system are almost non-existent, except for that on brackish-water pond area, production, and wholesale and retail market prices. Consequently many interesting questions related to supply-and-demand elasticities have not been addressed.