2024/07/21 by Suguru Otani, Otani, Suguru
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Global trade and economics #Law, logistics, and international trade #Merger and Competition Analysis #econ.GN #q-fin.EC
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2407.15147
openalex publication_date 2024/07/21 · openalex created_date 2024/09/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This paper studies how shipping conferences---explicit cartels---shaped container shipping through prices, entry, and investment from 1973--1990. I estimate a structural model to disentangle static pricing and internal allocation effects from dynamic entry and investment responses. \textcolorblackEstimated price wedges equal 30--70% of mean observed freight rates, and conference rents encouraged entry and shipbuilding. \textcolorblackRemoving the conference regime barely changes consumer plus producer surplus but raises net social welfare across markets by reducing resource costs. For fixed route quantity, \textcolorblackthe capacity-proportional benchmark allocation equalizes members' marginal costs, but alternative quota tilts produce different dynamic welfare rankings across markets.