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Advance freight rate announcements (GRI) in liner shipping: European and Russian regulatory settlements compared

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Maritime Economics & Logistics Aims and scope

Abstract

Advance price announcements in the form of general rate increase (GRIs) by liner shipping companies have recently become the subject of investigations by competition authorities in different jurisdictions, including the European Union and Russia. The main goal of this paper is to answer the question whether GRIs predict price changes of competitors. Comparison of GRIs with actual price changes in particular routes, defined as antitrust markets in competition investigations in Russia, shows a limited anti-competitive effect of advance price announcements, albeit under specific market conditions. Regression analysis, undertaken in the context of the Russian investigation, rejects the hypothesis that the GRI of a particular company would be followed by price increases of its competitors. Moreover, the frequent changes in the market shares of liner companies support the hypothesis of competition vis à vis collusion. Remedies applied by competition authorities address content and timing of GRIs. The theory of tacit collusion suggests that remedies, which further specify the content of price announcements, may paradoxically enhance non-cooperative pricing, in contrast to remedies that restrict audience of GRIs by customers.

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Notes

  1. Only three companies provided the court with the data on GRIs and price dynamics with the required data frequency. The data are confidential.

  2. Euromonitor, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/transport/data/database.

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Acknowledgements

The paper is an output of the Basic Research Program of the Higher School of Economics, National Research University. The authors would like to thank Maxim Ovchinnikov for helpful critical comments on the content of the decision of the Russian competition authority, and Alexander Larin for research assistance. Finally, they are extremely grateful to the reviewers and editor of MEL for their high-quality comments and suggestions that have substantially improved this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), B. Pecherskaya ST. 25/12, 603009, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

    Svetlana Avdasheva, Svetlana Golovanova & Gyuzel Yusupova

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  1. Svetlana Avdasheva
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  2. Svetlana Golovanova
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  3. Gyuzel Yusupova
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Correspondence to Svetlana Golovanova.

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Avdasheva, S., Golovanova, S. & Yusupova, G. Advance freight rate announcements (GRI) in liner shipping: European and Russian regulatory settlements compared. Marit Econ Logist 21, 192–206 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41278-018-0104-1

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