Reflections on Travel Time Savings: Comments to David Metz

Shipping companies frequently outsource the management of their vessels. In this paper, we use data from Lloyd's Register Fairplay (2009) IHS Fairplay World shipping encyclopaedia. Available at http://www.ihs.com/products/maritime-information/ships/world-shipping-encyclopedia.aspx?pu=1&;rd=ihsfairplay_com] on 45 456 vessels belonging to 9580 different ship-owners to investigate the extent of outsourcing in shipping and to identify the key factors affecting the likelihood of outsourcing. The results of our econometric analysis indicate that ship-owners' decisions to outsource are explained by the characteristics of the vessels in question (age, type and size) and the characteristics of the ship-owner (country of domiciliation and number of vessels). In addition, a specific country effect is identified for Greek ship-owners, which is in line with the findings of previous studies.