The Stability of Market Shares in Liner Shipping

The Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA) of 1998 significantly shifted the industrial structure of liner shipping markets from one that was dominated by price-fixing liner shipping conferences to one that is dominated by non-binding discussion agreements, global alliances, and long-term confidential contracting. The objective of this paper is to determine the extent to which the abandonment of the liner conference system on U.S. trade lanes affected the market share stability of individual steamship lines. The approach is to estimate a model of market share variation in U.S. liner shipping markets and compare the results under the two separate regulatory regimes. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013