Hilde Meersman

This book models price behaviour and forecasts prices in the dry bulk shipping market, a major component of the world shipping industry.

Recent uncertainties in the world economy, shipbuilding developments and fleet changes mean the dry bulk shipping market has become extremely volatile, highly speculative and more sensitive to external shocks. In response to these challenging circumstances, this book models price behaviour and forecasts prices in various markets including the freight market, the new build ship market and the second-hand ship market. The authors have carried out an extensive investigation of dry bulk shipping over a 60-year period in diverse sub-markets, trading routes, market conditions and dry bulk vessels.

The authors also propose a framework for analysing and modelling the economic processes of numerous variables in the dry bulk shipping market, making use of modern econometric techniques and other economic approaches. This will be especially useful for the control and assessment of risk for ship owners and charterers in ship operation, ship chartering and ship trading activities.

This book will be extremely useful for shipbuilders, owners and charterers, as well as shipping analysts and policymakers. It will also be of great interest to academics and researchers concerned with the economics of the shipping industry.