Understanding the determination mechanism and dynamics of shipping freight rates has significant implications for practitioners, economists, and regulators of maritime transport. This paper systematically reviews the relevant papers on shipping freight rate published between 2000 and 2019. Specifically, it provides empirical insights including the major influencing factors of shipping freight rates and differences among the shipping sectors, and discusses the dominant methods and their applicability, strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities for new methods. Furthermore, the omissions and limitations in methods are explored to identify the research gaps and set a future research agenda. It is found that there is a strong focus on temporal dynamics with a wide range of modelling methods applied, while discussion on cross-sectional dynamics on how shipping freight rates are determined by vessel characteristics, contract terms, market competition, etc., is limited. Besides, the collaboration network analysis shows that more knowledge sharing and crossdiscipline collaboration efforts can create potential for more inspired insights with advanced methods in this field.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	ocean shipping, freight rate, quantitative modelling, time series, cross-sectional dynamics, collaboration network
Research Division:	Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Research Group:	Transportation, logistics and supply chains
Research Field:	Maritime transportation and freight services
Objective Division:	Transport
Objective Group:	Water transport
Objective Field:	International sea freight transport (excl. live animals, food products and liquefied gas)
UTAS Author:	Shi, W (Dr Wenming Shi)
ID Code:	154132
Year Published:	2022
Web of Science® Times Cited:	8
Deposited By:	Maritime and Logistics Management
Deposited On:	2022-11-02
Last Modified:	2022-12-06
Downloads:	0