The survey on international freight rates in Italy: methods and results

The paper describes the methodology and the main results of the sample survey on international merchandise transport that the Bank of Italy has carried out since 1999, with a reconstruction of the aggregate time series to 1989. We have obtained information on the different transport modes from several sources and used interviews with operators to estimate freight rates according to the structure of the reference market. Foreign and Italian transporters� market shares of import and export volumes are estimated on the basis of the sample data and administrative records. We then break down foreign trade data by transport mode to take account of the structural overestimation of road haulage. We perform a quantitative analysis of the possible determinants of freight rates and compare the results with those available in the literature. The relationship between trade flows, transport distance and costs is estimated using a gravitational model