The impact of covid-19 on shipping industry studying economic factors

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on shipping industry using a multiple-regression econometric model based on Ordinary Least Squares. The model has considered Valencia Containerised Freight Index as the dependent variable. Several exogenous variables will be included in the model to estimate their partial effect, ceteris paribus on the endogenous one, such as economic and maritime casuistry. Coronavirus, known as a global pandemic, had a strong impact on world economies during 2020.   As a result, this paper is focused on analysing COVID-19 impact on shipping industry. Therefore, it is going to be studied economic effects of pandemic for shipping companies in order to show how they managed this new scenario. On the other hand, human factor from maritime perspective will be mentioned in order to consider central effects on seafarers and how they felt during pandemic on board. As maritime transport represents 90% of global trade, this research wants to analyse why freight prices were constantly growing during months. Using quarterly cross- sectional database, we study three possible regressions, achieving an increase on goodness-of-fit statistic in each one. Despite of having a limited database, Spanish imports, Spanish E-commerce growth and Gross weight of goods handled in main Spanish ports have turned highly significant to explain rises on Valencian freight prices.