Essays on Economic Aspects of Regulating Maritime Transport

The maritime transport sector (henceforth shipping sector) can be seen as the backbone of globalization since it transports 80% of the merchandise traded internationally (UNCTAD, 2008). It transported about 8.4 billion tons of merchandise throughout the world in 2010 (UNCTAD, 2011). Needless to say, the shipping sector is a global sector. Over 170 countries are engaged as maritime states (IMO, 2013). Ships are globally mobile and can have multiple nationalities, i.e., ships can be owned and operated by different nationalities, and registered in different countries. Furthermore, ships are subject to multiple regulations, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Conventions of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the laws of the flag states, and the laws of the coastal states (Stopford, 2009). Thus, regulating such a global sector is a challenging task. The papers presented in this cumulative dissertation deal with economic aspects of regulating this global sector in two areas of interest. Thus, the dissertation is divided into two parts. Part I (first paper) deals with regulating the transit charges of an interna-tional waterway in the context of price discrimination. Part II (second, third, and fourth paper), which is the main emphasis of the dissertation, deals with regulating CO2 emissions of the shipping sector in the context of climate change policy.