The influence of oil price on maritime routing of containerized imports from China

Joseph Zelasney, Daniel Huppert and Thomas Leschine
Additional contact information
Joseph Zelasney: University of Washington, School of Marine Affairs, Seattle, USA
Daniel Huppert: University of Washington, School of Marine Affairs, Seattle, USA
Thomas Leschine: University of Washington, School of Marine Affairs, Seattle, USA

Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2011, vol. 13, issue 3, 298-318

Abstract: US West Coast ports have long been the principal gateway for container imports originating in Northeast Asia and destined for the Eastern United States. However, West Coast ports are losing market share to US Gulf and East Coast ports (USG&ECP). This study investigates the role oil prices may have played in the observed cargo shift. Logistic regression is used to predict the proportion of containerized imports from China shipped on the all-water route directly to USG&ECP based on trade data published by the US Census Bureau. The model employs three predictor variables: oil price, US West Coast labor strife and railroad rates. The model suggests oil price is positively correlated with the proportion of containerized imports from China shipped to USG&ECP and that oil price has a greater influence on the proportion of low value goods than high value goods shipped on the all-water route. Sensitivity tests based on model parameters are preformed to evaluate how future volatility in oil markets might influence maritime routing of containerized imports from China to the United States.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/journal/v13/n3/pdf/mel201113a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/journal/v13/n3/full/mel201113a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:marecl:v:13:y:2011:i:3:p:298-318

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41278/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Maritime Economics & Logistics is currently edited by Hercules E. Haralambides

More articles in Maritime Economics & Logistics from Palgrave Macmillan, International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().