The growth and patterns of international trade

Over the last 40 years, there has been an unprecedented growth in trade amongst countries, and the growth in trade shows no sign of slowing down. The increases in trade have put tremendous pressure on the maritime and port industries, and these industries have responded with innovations, investment, and greater productivity. International trade and maritime trade are synonyms, and an understanding of the determinants of international trade is central to understanding maritime trade. In this paper, we provide a review of the international trade literature with a focus on the determinants of trade and the evolution of trade modeling. We then present a broad overview of the extent and growth of trade in the context of primary determinants. The basic results are: (1) Trade is growing at a phenomenal rate; (2) Trade is dominated by relatively few countries who tend to remain dominant; (3) While trade of all products is growing, there are large differences in the growth rates, but yet, there is stability in the relative sizes of product markets; and (4) Over the last 40 years, trade has changed from major flows between the US and Europe to major flows between Asia and the US.     

Will China’s airline industry survive the entry of high-speed rail?

This study investigates the effects of high-speed rail (HSR) services on Chinese airlines. Our analysis suggests that the HSR service will be competitive in terms of network connectivity, total travel time and cost efficiency. On the other hand, growth of the Chinese airline industry has been unbalanced in terms of traffic distribution, airline network development, airport capacity and share of international traffic. While the long term prospects of Chinese airlines are bright, the carriers must develop effective hub-and-spoke networks and increase their competitiveness in international markets in order to achieve sustainable growth in the coming years. For the Chinese government, continued investment at hub airports and support to low-cost carriers are also necessary.     

Impacts of trade liberalization on Chinese economy with Belt and Road initiative

China has been continuously implementing the open-door policy for past 15 years ever since it joined the World Trade Organization, which escalated international trade and demand for shipping. Compared with the other major importing countries in the world, China’s importing tariff is relatively low. Under the Belt and Road initiatives, more Free Trade Agreements to be concluded and more Free Trade Zones to be established, it is expected that the effective import tariff rate may continue to decrease in the future. This study analyses the impact of further reduction in Chinese import tariff rate on major economic indicators using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and based on the Chinese macro-economic data of 2012. The model results show that, with a balanced international payment, such a reduction can increase GDP, resident consumption, both imports and exports, and reduce GDP price, trade surplus, and government revenue. The results ease the concern that further import tariff reduction may harm the domestic production. Rather, it points out that there are still rooms to improve national economy and increase the consumer utility by trade liberation.     

Analyzing aviation safety: Problems,challenges, opportunities

This paper reviews the economic literature relating to aviation safety; analyzes the safety record of commercial passenger aviation in the United States and abroad; examines aviation security as a growing dimension of aviation safety; and identifies emerging issues in airline safety and challenges for aviation safety research. Commercial airline safety has improved dramatically since the industry's birth over a century ago. Fatal accident rates for large scheduled jet airlines have fallen to the level where (along many dimensions) aviation is now the safest mode of commercial transportation. However, safety performance has not been evenly distributed across all segments of commercial aviation, nor among all countries and regions of the world. The finding that developing countries have much poorer safety records has been a persistent conclusion in aviation safety research and continues to be the case. Unfortunately, operations data are not available for many of the airlines that experience fatal accidents, so it is not possible to calculate reliable fatality rates for many segments of the worldwide aviation industry. Without more complete information, it will likely be difficult to make substantial improvements in the safety of these operations. Challenges to improving aviation security include: how much to focus on identifying the terrorists as opposed to identifying the tools they might use; determining how to respond to terrorist threats; and determining the public versus private roles in providing aviation security. The next generation of safety challenges now require development and understanding of new forms of data to improve safety in other segments of commercial aviation, and moving from a reactive, incident-based approach toward a more proactive, predictive and systems-based approach.     

Airline network competition: Full-service airlines, low-cost airlines and long-haul markets

The paper discusses airline network competition. Low-cost airlines and conventional airlines have distinctly different strategies and network types. This determines their ability to compete with other airlines in specific markets. The paper discusses the lack of competition between conventional airlines in local markets, and sees why low-cost airlines are the primary source of competition in such markets. Conventional airlines are relatively strong on long-haul markets, using their networks to keep costs per seat relatively low. Charter airlines show that a long-haul low-cost strategy is feasible For scheduled low-cost airlines, this may be more difficult, but this does not automatically mean that low-cost airlines cannot enter thick long-haul markets.     

EDI报文标准在物流电子商务中的应用

发端于重庆“关、港、贸”协作机制的西部口岸物流信息平台 ,结合内贸运输和综合物流 ,用XML开发基于EDI核心交换技术和报文标准的物流电子单证及业务交换电子商务 ,最终将实现西部口岸物流的一站式服务 ,并与中国电子口岸系统、长江流域国际集装箱多式联运EDI信息系统等连接。整个系统分为网络接入、信息交换、应用处理和数据库 4个子系统。按照分步实施原则 ,首先实现数据处理、信息发布、会员服务、在线交易等基本功能 ,然后根据实际营运情况和需要 ,发展辅助功能 ,最后建成西部地区电子采购系统。     

人民币升值对国际航运业的影响

分析人民币升值对航运市场及国际航运企业财务状况、经营竞争力的影响,认为人民币升值使国际航运企业航运收入减少,航运成本增加,经营竞争力下降,并提出相应对策。     

Airlines within airlines: Assessing the vulnerabilities of mixing business models

In this paper we examine two questions; what is it that makes some cases of airlines within airlines apparently successful while in many other cases it is just the opposite? And second, why would a carrier attempt such a strategy, is there a common set of circumstances or is each case unique? In the US, Canada and Europe a number of legacy carriers have sought to respond to LCC entry by creating an LCC within the legacy carriers; most have failed but some have succeeded, most notably in Australia and Germany. We first examine the evolution of the LCC business model and illustrate the different forms it takes today. Following this we provide a discussion of the underlying sources of cost advantage of the LCC and assess which sources are sustainable in the longer term. Finally we examine the conditions under which these apparent successes have occurred and look for common threads. We find market dominance, judicious network planning and co-ordination are necessary conditions for success.     

天津东疆保税港区建设自由贸易港区管理模式探究

为积极探索保税港区向自由贸易港区发展的有效途径,通过借鉴香港、荷兰、迪拜等国家和地区国际自由贸易区发展情况,运用比较方法,分析自由贸易港区发展趋势,对建立适合天津东疆保税港区科学发展的新型管理模式进行有益探讨。     

Regulation,trust and contractual incentives around transport contracts – Is there anything bus operators can learn from public air service contracts?

This paper compares recent experiences in contract negotiation and subsequent commitment in public air services with the bus industry. The heart of the paper is a survey of European and Australian regional airlines, which we mirror with revealed experiences of bus operators. We aim to identify a number of elements in the contracting regimes that have exposed ambiguity and significant gaps in what the principal (e.g., transport department) expected, and what the agent (airline or bus operator) believed they were obliged to deliver. Ultimately airline and bus services are similar in that public authorities procure transport services that are desirable for the society but would be unprofitable without government involvement. In both sectors (theoretically fairly similar) public transport contracts are used, and those usually include obligations and performance measurements. In terms of similarities, one of the surveyed contract details that had a perceived high clarity in both industries was “payment procedures” and amongst those with rather poor clarity was also in both industries “incentives to improve performance and grow patronage”. We also show differences between regional air services and bus operations with regard to performance measurement and pre-specified obligations. Because of the strong safety culture around air services we find that regulation and trusting partnerships are even more important to aviation than to the bus sector. Because of the high level of trust but also because of simpler and more complete contracts in aviation, there is much less (re-)negotiation going on compared to the bus operations.     

Maritime transport and international seaborne trade

Drawing upon over four decades of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Review of Maritime Transport, this article considers selected key trends that have shaped the maritime transportation of today. Over the review period, a fundamental shift in the geography of trade has been observed, with developing countries increasingly driving growth in the world economy and seaborne trade, and becoming important players in global value chains. The specialization of countries, including in developing regions, in the provision of the maritime goods and services for which they have established a comparative advantage constitutes another major trend, a move away from previous patterns where developing countries were typically users of maritime transport services. The article also observes that bilateral freight sharing agreements between countries which were prominent in 1970s have largely lost their practical relevance, leading to a further liberalization of markets and resulting in overall relatively lower freight costs.     

Incumbent responses to low-cost airline entry and exit: A spatial autoregressive panel data analysis

While the US airline industry has been substantially transformed in recent years by the growth of low-cost airlines, the cost-saving benefits of lower airfares are difficult to gauge empirically. There are two important ways in which this paper contributes to the existing literature on the impact of the low-cost carriers (LCCs). First, the availability of route-level panel data allows us to examine the role of the LCCs in the long-run adjustment of airfares as well as the responses of the incumbent carriers to LCC entry and exit in a dynamic setting. Second, we capitalize on recent developments in spatial econometrics and explicitly model the spatial dependence among adjacent airline routes, an issue often ignored by previous studies. Although most of the pro-competitive effects of LCC entry take place after entry, we find evidence that the incumbent carriers also cut airfares in anticipation of entry by the LCCs. Moreover fares remain lower even after Southwest Airlines exits. Our empirical analysis confirms the spatial dependence among airfares in adjacent routes, provides estimates of the consumer benefits from lower airfares in routes affected by LCCs, and shows that there are substantial indirect benefits, i.e. lower fares in spatially-linked, nearby routes.     

International trade in marine species: Is CITES a useful control mechanism?

Abstract

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was created to prevent species becoming threatened through international trade. It generally prohibits international commercial trade in seriously threatened species but permits trade in a regulated manner in species vulnerable to exploitation but not yet at risk of extinction. CITES covers comparatively few marine taxa, reflecting the fact that most marine species have much greater ranges and fecundity than terrestrial species and so are more resilient to exploitation. Exceptions are to be found in the higher vertebrates. Several marine mammals may have benefited from CITES controls, although their popular appeal, commercial importance, and extreme vulnerability have meant that other treaties and conservation activities have been adopted to control their exploitation. Marine turtles Cheloniidae and the estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) certainly have benefited from CITES controls. Many commercially important fishes and invertebrates are covered by international and regional fishery agreements; a few, with life histories making them particularly vulnerable to exploitation, are subject to CITES controls. The structure of CITES limits its utility as a conservation tool for marine species, but where other mechanisms fail or are absent, it plays a useful role, and it is particularly valuable as an international trade monitoring mechanism.     

Can long-haul low-cost airlines be successful?

A key question is whether the very successful, largely short-haul LCC business model can work over long-haul sectors? This paper compares the cost and other advantages of LCCs and evaluates how far they might be applied to long-haul sectors. It is estimated that cost advantages might be much lower than the 50-60% on short-hauls. Other factors such as the adoption by network airlines of some LCC features and their likely competitive response, the limited potential for market stimulation, the need for dense markets and feed traffic all combine to cast doubt on the widespread establishment of the business model for long-haul flights.     

Port competition between Shanghai and Ningbo

The objective of this paper is to analyse the relative competitiveness of the neighbouring container ports of Shanghai and Ningbo in China and to develop a view of the likely future outcome of the competition between them. After assessing the demand for their services within what is hypothesized as a shared hinterland, current supply and future expansion plans are detailed and considered within the two ports' wider development strategies. The relative competitiveness of the two ports is then evaluated on the basis of price and quality of service, as embodied within the concept of generalized cost as incurred by customers. A critical political dimension is a necessary element of this analysis. It is concluded that continued economic development in the hinterland, central government policies on regional development and China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will all contribute to growing demand for port services. However, Ningbo will continue to gain greater market share as the result of advantages in its natural endowments (particularly depth of water), price (especially in terms of recovering the cost of capacity expansions) and quality of service improvements that are predicted to emerge as the result of currently planned enhancements to inland transport infrastructure and logistical systems.     

Port competition between Shanghai and Ningbo

The objective of this paper is to analyse the relative competitiveness of the neighbouring container ports of Shanghai and Ningbo in China and to develop a view of the likely future outcome of the competition between them. After assessing the demand for their services within what is hypothesized as a shared hinterland, current supply and future expansion plans are detailed and considered within the two ports’ wider development strategies. The relative competitiveness of the two ports is then evaluated on the basis of price and quality of service, as embodied within the concept of generalized cost as incurred by customers. A critical political dimension is a necessary element of this analysis. It is concluded that continued economic development in the hinterland, central government policies on regional development and China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will all contribute to growing demand for port services. However, Ningbo will continue to gain greater market share as the result of advantages in its natural endowments (particularly depth of water), price (especially in terms of recovering the cost of capacity expansions) and quality of service improvements that are predicted to emerge as the result of currently planned enhancements to inland transport infrastructure and logistical systems.     

散货船水尺检量分析

考虑到不同国家和地区的水尺检量员在实际水尺检量工作中,对船舶排水量计算存在不同的理解和认识,使得大宗商品国际贸易中对商品数量的认定存在着一些纠纷,基于水尺检量原理,结合实际工作经验,分析水运散装货物船船水尺检量过程中影响计量的因素,为准确计量货物提供参考。     

船舶工业的知识产权保护和创新能力提高

在当前的国际竞争中,自主知识产权的竞争成为企业乃至国家竞争的焦点.企业要在激烈的市场竞争中占据一席之地,必须进行技术创新,提高竞争能力.文章针对企业在知识产权保护方面存在的问题提出了相应对策和建议.     

两岸直航经济博弈分析

通过采用子博弈精练纳什均衡理论分析的方法,分析两岸迟迟不能实现海上直航的原因。贸易是两岸直航的主要动力;只有当两岸贸易发展到较高程度时,航运业者才会赞成两岸实现直航。此外,有一种实现海上直航的特殊情况存在:两岸贸易的受损集团力量较强却赞成直航,即使两岸贸易发展较弱,也可能实现海上两岸直航。