Navigating Through Torpedo Attacks and Enemy Raiders: Merchant Shipping and Freight Rates During World War I

Dry Bulk Shipping and the Evolution of Maritime Transport Costs, 1850-2020

“…We can make this association even tighter if we only consider the period of their primary focus which is from 1870 to 1939: in this case, the correlation climbs to a value of 0.94 over these 70 years. 4 Likewise, we find: a correlation of 0.98 in between our series and that reported in Klovland (2009) for the period from 1850 to 1861; a correlation of 0.89 in between our series and that reported in Klovland (2017) for the period from 1912-1920; and a correlation of 0.98 in between our series and the annual Baltic Dry Index for the period from 1999-2017. By all accounts then, our index of real dry bulk freight rates appears to be highly representative of developments in the general market for shipping services.…”

“…This procedure has strong intuitive appeal in that it roughly amounts to calculating an unweighted average of changes in real freight rates in any given year. This procedure has also been used to good effect by Klovland (2009Klovland ( , 2017 in a set of papers which explore the trajectory of freight rates at a higher (monthly) frequency and which will form a good basis of comparison as they draw on different samples of freight rates than those used here. Finally, we employ the most conservative selection of the data and only use real freight rate observations which are observed on a year-to-year basis, thereby excluding any observations which include gaps which are two or more years in length.…”

Shipping in Dire Straits: New Evidence on Trends and Cycles in Coal Freights from Britain, 1919-1939

“…19 The rest of the 1920s are characterized by short and relative mild cycles, interrupted by the coal strike in 1926. When coal shipments were resumed towards the end of the year freight rates were temporarily raised relative to the level before the labour dispute paralyzed the coal trade, 17 For data on the wartime freight markets, see Klovland (2016). 18 The Board of Trade wholesale index number (Capie and Collins (1983, p. 32 The proportion of coal exports carried in British ships in 1935 is also shown in the far right column, computed from data in Isserlis (1938).…”

Dry bulk shipping and the evolution of maritime transport costs, 1850–2020

“…This procedure has strong intuitive appeal in that it roughly amounts to calculating an unweighted average of the proportionate change in real freight rates in any given year. This procedure has also been used to good effect by Klovland (2009Klovland ( , 2017 in a set of papers which explore the trajectory of freight rates at a higher frequency (monthly) and which form a good basis of comparison as they draw on different samples of freight rates than those used here. Finally, we employ the most conservative selection of the data and only use real freight rate observations which are observed on a year-to-year basis, thereby excluding any observations which include gaps which are two or more years in length.…”