A GARCH Approach to Modelling Ocean Grain Freight Rates

Abstract

Directed graphs and autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic error processes are used in the specification and estimation of an ocean grain rate equation. Results show voyage distance, ship size, contract terms, flag and season are important explainers of rates, as is ship tonnage contracted for haulage of selected other dry bulk commodities. Findings suggest the importance of efficient port infrastructure and its ability to accommodate the increasingly-large, more efficient bulk carrier in maintaining exporting countries' competitiveness in world grain markets.