Dry Bulk Shipping and the Evolution of Maritime Transport Costs, 1850-2020

The views in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System. This paper is a contribution to a volume in honour of Jeff Williamson, and we would like to recognize not only his comments but also his support through the years. Additionally, we thank Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian, Jan Tore Klovland, James Morley, Andrew Seltzer, and Stig Tenold for timely comments. We also especially thank Christiane Baumeister for allowing us to use additional freight rate data for the post-1973 period and Alexis Wegerich for allowing us to use the coal price data underlying his thesis. Anna Eckert, Camila Holn, Sean Howard, Aida Kazemi, and Sean Lee also provided excellent research assistance. Finally, Jacks gratefully acknowledges the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for research support. Jacks: Simon Fraser University/Yale-NUS College, CEPR, and NBER; Stuermer: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Research Department. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.