No abstract

No abstract

This article presents an econometric analysis for the fluctuation of the container freight rate due to the interactions between the demand for container transportation services and the container fleet capacity. The demand is derived from international trade and is assumed to be exogenous, while the fleet capacity increases with new orders made two years before, proportional to the industrial profit. Assuming the market clears each year, the shipping freight rate will change with the relative magnitude of shifts in the demand and fleet capacity. This model is estimated using the world container shipping market statistics from 1980 to 2008, applying the three-stage least square method. The estimated parameters of the model have high statistical significance, and the overall explanatory power of the model is above 90%. The short-term in-sample prediction of the model can largely replicate the container shipping market fluctuation in terms of the fleet size dynamics and the freight rate fluctuation in the past 20 years. The prediction of the future market trend reveals that the container freight rate should continue to decrease in the coming three years if the demand for container transportation services grows at less than 8%

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The increasing concerns caused by marine environmental issues have aroused attention from international agencies and regional governments about the regulation of the amount of ship emissions. There are various measures and regulations to control shipping emissions, among which emission control areas (ECAs) have been recognized as an effective tool to restrict shipping emissions along coastlines. Realizing the serious damage caused by shipping emissions, the Chinese Ministry of Transport announced the establishment of sulfur emission control areas (SECAs) in 2015. However, the low SECA standards have aroused public concern about their effectiveness. This study analyzes the incentives for slow steaming in Chinese SECAs based on the existing research models of speed. A specific route from Shanghai to Los Angeles is chosen and the ship speeds inside and outside the SECA are simulated by minimizing the shipping company’s operating costs. By analyzing the simulated results and comparing different scenarios, it has been found that the current range of SECAs in China cannot induce speed differentiation behaviors. At the same time, a ratio of more than 7% (the ratio of SECA distance to the total round-trip distance) is proposed as effective for designing the SECA boundary. This study provides various guidelines on the designation of SECAs for international and regional marine policies.

No abstract