”Container freight rates, maritime transport costs and their impact on trade and prices”

Abstract

With this thesis we want to describe the current phenomenon, which has been dragging on for almost two years, of the increase in tariffs on maritime transport and analyse its possible impact on trade, prices and inflation. We will analyse the causes, starting from the first lockdown with the various disruptions on the supply chain and then moving on to other structural problems of international maritime transport and logistics. We will therefore try, according to the recent literature available, to understand the consequences that this prolonged increase in transport costs would have on the general economy, especially how much it would impact in terms of inflation. Finally, we will look for possible solutions that national legislators and international organisations could stimulate and adopt to prevent these sectoral costs from threatening the global recovery. We will observe the various investment and regulation interventions adopted in some of the most important countries of the international trade involved in these increases in transport prices and by one of the greatest historical crises of the supply chain.