Does quality pay? The case of the dry bulk market

Following important changes in the safety regulation of tankers, the dry bulk sector is coming under the spotlight in a safety and quality perspective. Nominal freight differentiation between ‘quality’ and ‘other’ tonnage has been observed occasionally and much lip service has been paid to promoting the need for younger and safer ships. Whether or not these signals actually manifest in a market initiative for the enhancement of the standards of the world bulk carrier fleet is debatable. This paper investigates the possible existence of a two-tier spot freight market for medium and large bulk carriers of differing age. Known voyage fixtures are investigated for four representative years since the end of the 1980s, during which contrasting freight market conditions prevailed. In all but very few cases, there was no statistically significant difference between rates paid to older and younger tonnage. In those few cases where such differences were statistically significant, they never exceeded 10%.     

Seasonality patterns in dry bulk shipping spot and time charter freight rates

This paper investigates the nature of seasonality (deterministic and/or stochastic) in dry bulk freight rates, and measures and compares it across freight rates of different vessel sizes (Capesize, Panamax and Handysize), contract duration (spot, 1-year and 3-year time charters) and market conditions (peaks and troughs). Although, there is no evidence of stochastic seasonality, deterministic seasonality in freight rates is found to be varying from −18.2% to 15.3% in individual months within a year. Spot rates for larger vessels exhibit higher seasonal fluctuations compared to smaller vessels, although differences in seasonal fluctuations between sectors are eliminated as the contract duration increases. Also, for each vessel size, the seasonality declines as the contract duration rises. Asymmetries in seasonal fluctuations in freight rates over different market conditions are attributed to the high and low elasticities of supply expected under the respective market conditions. The results have implications for tactical shipping operations such as timing of dry-docking, chartering strategies and switching between freight markets.     

Analyzing air cargo flows of international routes: an empirical study of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport

Air cargo demand is an important aspect of the operation and planning of private and public agencies responsible for airports. While most existing studies in this field include only geo-economic characteristics of airports and their hinterlands as explanatory variables, this study develops a gravity model of air cargo flows by trying to incorporate more factors that might influence international air cargo flows of an airport. The model is developed based on the panel data of air cargo services on scheduled routes at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport during the years 2004-2007. The results indicate that population, air freight rate and three dummy variables, including the regional economic bloc of the “Chinese Circle”(an informal partnership between Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and mainland China), the Open Sky Agreements and long established colonial links, are key determinants of international air cargo flows from/to Taiwan. These results suggest a wider array of factors needs to be considered in policy.     

The application of stochastic frontier panel models in economic regulation: Experience from the European rail sector

This paper shows how stochastic frontier panel techniques can be used by economic regulators to benchmark regulated firms against international best practice. We utilise a unique, panel dataset of European rail infrastructure managers (1996-2006). A time-varying inefficiency model, with firm-specific time paths for inefficiency, is adopted. The results were used in the 2008 regulatory review of the British infrastructure manager, Network Rail, and showed that the company faced an efficiency gap of around 40% against European best practice - in line with engineering-based evidence. More widely, the paper highlights the advantages of the inefficiency specification adopted for use in economic regulation.     

A passenger demand model for air transportation in a hub-and-spoke network

This paper develops an air passenger model that deals with city-pair demand generation and demand assignment in a single framework. Using publicly available and regularly collected panel data, the model captures both time series and cross-sectional variation of air travel demand. The empirical analysis finds that pattern of correlations among alternatives can be described by a three-level nested logit model. Fare, frequency, flight time, direct routing, on-time performance, income, and market distance have significantly effects on air demand. Correcting for the problem of endogenous air fares using instrumental variables yields more plausible estimates of price sensitivity and value of time.     

Operational efficiency of Asia–Pacific airports

Airports are important drivers of economic development and thus under tremendous pressure from emerging competitors. However, few studies have analysed the operational efficiency of Asia–Pacific airports. This study therefore evaluated the operational efficiency of 21 Asia–Pacific airports between 2002 and 2011. A two-stage method was used: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess airport efficiency, followed by the second-stage regression analysis to identify the key determinants of airport efficiency. The first-stage DEA results indicated that Adelaide, Beijing, Brisbane, Hong Kong, Melbourne, and Shenzhen are the efficient airports. The second-stage regression analysis suggested that percentage of international passengers handled by an airport, airport hinterland population size, dominant airline(s) of an airport when entering global airline strategic alliance, and an increase in GDP per capita are significant in explaining variations in airport efficiency.