This study provides an economic analysis of the liner shipping market and freight rates based on Canadian data, looking at theliner shipping industry in general and the conference system inparticular. It provides an empirical analysis of the structrueand level of conference tariffs and the impact of these freightcharges on the final prices of major exports and imports in theCanada-Europe trades. The study involves the use of statisticaldata analysis techniques and econometric models to test a numberof theoretical hypotheses.
Empirical analysis of the stucture of the liner shipping market and the level and structure of liner conference rates based on Canadian data from 1973 to1984. Statistical data analysis and econometric models are used to examine aset of economic issues and theoretical hypotheses related to the performanceof the liner industry. Data is taken from conference tariffs filed with theCanadian Transport Commission, shipping statistics compiled by StatisticsCanada, external trade statistics published by Statistics Canada, two stowagehandbooks, and published journals and reports.
The importance of international liner shipping needs little emphasizing. A large majority of international trade moves by sea, and the liner shipping share in total freight revenue exceeds one-half. Notwithstanding, people in general know surprisingly little about the basic facts of the liner shipping industry, and, in particular, about the economics ofliner shipping. Perhaps because it is an international industry, where shipping lines flying many different flags participate, it has tended to fall in between national accounts of domestic industries. Even transport economists have, generally speaking, treated liner shipping rather 'stepmotherly'; besides the work of Bennathan and Walters (1969), a relatively small group of specialized maritime economists, including A. Stromme-Svendsen, T. Thorburn, S. Sturmey, R. Goss, and B. M. Deakin, have in the post-war period made important contributions to the subject, but so far no coherent and reasonably comprehensive treatise of liner shipping economics has appeared. The first purpose of the present volume is therefore obvious: to provide just that. The book is divided in three parts: Part I The liner shipping industry; Part II Liner service optimization; Part III Economic evaluation of the conference system. Needless to say, all three parts concur to fulfill the first purpose of providing a complete book of liner shipping economics. In Part II a more or less separate, second, purpose has been to develop analytical tools for liner service optimization. Thereby we use different approaches.
Survey of the structure and economic performance of the deep-sea shipping industry as it pertains to Canadian dry bulk trade, using a short survey ofspecialized literature combined with Canadian and foreign maritime statisticsto form the basis for the models used to carry out a simulation of costs andrevenues. A bibliography is included.
