Ocean Shipping Alliances: The Wave of the Future?

Edward J Sheppard and David Seidman
Additional contact information
Edward J Sheppard: Partner, Thompson Coburn, Washington, DC, USA
David Seidman: Associate, Thompson Coburn, Washington, DC, USA

Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2001, vol. 3, issue 4, 367 pages

Abstract: Over the last decade, carriers have entered into operational relationships known as alliances to increase their product offerings and to reduce their costs. Carriers have been able to do so because alliances enable partners to rely on and to combine other carriers' operations in addition to their own. Although alliances have drastically improved operational efficiency, larger carriers will not take the logical next step and merge for a variety of reasons. Ironically, regulation through the Federal Maritime Commission is not one of the factors dissuading carriers from consolidating. This paper explains, from the carriers' point of view, the advantages and disadvantages of entering into alliances and explores the history of the US regulatory regime of cooperative agreements, including alliances. Thereafter, this paper analyses the factors that potentially will influence the future of alliances and predicts the effect of each of these factors. Overall, this paper concludes that carriers would prefer to enjoy the benefits of alliances without having to ally or to merge with another carrier; therefore, the real long-term goal of large carriers is the improvement of their services without the aid of another large carrier, regardless of whether the improvement is through an alliance or a merger.International Journal of Maritime Economics (2001) 3, 351–367. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.ijme.9100025

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/journal/v3/n4/pdf/9100025a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/journal/v3/n4/full/9100025a.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:3:y:2001:i:4:p:351-367

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 ().