Year: 2006
Type: report
Abstract: The middle of the nineteenth century has long been a challenge to researchers of ocean freight\nrates. The data originating from the circulars of the London shipbroker firm of Angier Brothers\nhave been the basis of much of the early work on pre-WWI freight rate movements, including the\nwell-known Isserlis index published in 1938. These data only extend back to 1869, however. This\npaper presents new ocean freight rate indices for the 1850s using a number of previously unexplored\ndata sources, including contemporary Norwegian and British newspapers and freight rate circulars.\nMonthly indices of 14 homeward trade routes and 14 outward coal freight routes from Britain are\npresented, giving new information on the cyclical movements of ocean freight rates in the 1850s.\nThe application of a new method of index construction to the freight rate data is suggested. This\nmethod has previously been successfully applied to construct price indices for property markets,\nwhere it is known as a ‘repeat sales index’. It is argued that this method may be applied to ocean\nfreight rate data as well, because the property markets and the tramp shipping markets share the\nbasic characteristics of the price information flow: prices of specific objects are usually available only at infrequent and irregular intervals.
Author: Jan Tore Klovland
Institution: Norwegian School of Economics
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2460413933