Cost has a significant impact on competitiveness within the shipbuilding industry. In China, low costs have created favourable conditions for domestic shipyards competing in the international market. However, China's shipbuilders have been facing rising cost pressures in recent years, which may...

The paper discusses port pricing structures that enhance ship efficiency. Traditionally, ports use public infrastructure pricing, which does not take differences in waiting cost into considerations. We present two alternatives, a two part priority pricing scheme and port slot auctions, as...

In this paper we study bulk shipping of coal between the central regions in the world. We compare the performance of cost-minimizing models with a gravity model approach. The main finding in the paper is that cost minimizing models provide relative poor fits to data. A simple one parameter...

Although Britain may no longer "rule the waves" in terms of national fleet presence, London still maintains its supremacy as the world's leading maritime centre. However, with the decline of the fleet there has been an inevitable decline in the maritime skills-base and a loss of shipping...

There has been an increased interest recently in alliances as successors of the large consortia that used to operate in the context of the conference system. Today, having become a common means and term of co-operation in a variety of other industries, alliances are posited as the response of...