The Measurement of Grain Barge Demand on Inland Waterways: A Study of the Upper Mississippi River

This paper estimates the demand for corn and soybean shipments on the Ohio River during the 1992-2004 period. Using monthly data, OLS (with Newewy-West standard errors) parameters estimates were obtained for the explanatory variables. Results indicate that Ohio River corn and soybean shipments are significantly and positively affected by one month lagged shipments, corn and soybean stocks in the Ohio River production region, and corn and soybean exports from lower Mississippi River Gulf ports. Some empirical support was found for a significant negative relationship between Ohio River corn and soybean shipments and ocean shipping freight rates from lower Mississippi River Gulf ports to Japan. Indiana corn prices did not significantly affect Ohio River corn and soybean shipments.

A Model of Corn and Soybean Shipments on the Ohio River

Babcock

Fuller

2010

Demand Analysis for Coal on the United States Inland Waterway System: Fully Modified Cointegration (FM-OLS) Approach

Chi¹,

Baek²

2012

The Phillip-Hansen fully-modified cointegration (FM-OLS) approach is applied to examine the dynamic relationship between demand for coal barge transportation, and explanatory variables such as barge and rail rates, domestic coal consumption and production, and coal exports. The results provide strong evidence that there exists a long-run equilibrium relationship between demand for coal barge transportation and the selected variables. It is also found that, in the long-run, the domestic coal consumption and coal exports are more important than other variables in determining the demand for coal barge transportation. In the short run, on the other hand, domestic coal production is found to be the only significant determinant of coal demand. This dynamic analysis will shed new light on the dynamic interrelationships between the demand for coal barge transportation and its major determinants, and contribute to the empirical literature on transportation economics.

Specifying and Estimating a Regional Agricultural Railroad Demand Model

Babcock

Gayle

2014

In recent years there have been few railroad demand studies. Also, no study has investigated the possibility of regional differences in railroad demand. The objective of the paper is to estimate railroad demand functions for wheat, corn, sorghum, and soybeans for the United States as well as the east and west regions. A two-region spatial equilibrium model is employed to specify the empirical model in which railroad tons originated is the dependent variable. The explanatory variables include railroad price per ton, crop production, and barge price per ton. The theoretically expected sign is negative for rail price. Alternatively, the expected sign is positive for crop production and barge rate. Results include estimates of railroad own-price elasticities and cross price elasticities relative to barge transport. The estimates also reveal regional differences in railroad grain demand.