Total Deadweight Research Articles

Передумови розвитку судноплавства України

The article provides coverage of possible approaches to the formation of economically attractive conditions for the operation of ships after the victory, which today is the main goal of the economic science of the maritime industry. In this regard, the main task of the publication is the implementation of strategic goals in shipping, the need to ensure the competitive advantages of Ukraine's foreign trade and the efficiency of work on the global freight market. In addition to the size of the total deadweight, the article provides approaches to establishing an economically feasible number of fleet units that will meet the conditions for achieving the lowest risk of the probability of loss-free operation of each shipping company. This is due to the fact that there is an optimal number of ships in which the losses incurred by one ship are compensated by the profit received by another fleet. The conclusions provide recommendations for the development of shipping in Ukraine.

On Distributive Justice by Antitrust: The Robin Hood Cartel

Abstract Equity concerns in antitrust could justify market power in return for a fairer allocation by weighing the consumer welfare of certain disadvantaged groups more heavily. A simple example of an equity-justified agreement illustrates how seeking distributive justice through relaxed antitrust enforcement is ineffective and inefficient. Permitting competitors to jointly set prices gives them the power to price discriminate, which they could use to redistribute wealth by overcharging the rich and giving lower than competitive prices to the poor. Provided society values redistribution enough, such a ‘Robin Hood cartel’ is profitable, despite losing money on the poor and creating deadweight losses. Yet the poor will be given only what is minimally required in return for permission to take from the rich. Without conditions, the joint-profit maximizing wealth redistribution is nothing more than alms for the poor. They receive more under a full-payout plan, but total deadweight losses remain high. In essence, assigning a larger relative consumer welfare weight to the poor discounts the inefficiencies on the rich.

Development Trends of World Commercial Fleet during 2001-2018

The article analyzes the development of maritime commercial fleet during the period of 2000 - 2018. The four largest segments of the commercial marine fleet, the oil tankers, the bulkers, the container ships, and the general cargo ships have been considered. These segments formed 85% to 90% of the total deadweight of the world commercial fleet in different years. The peculiarities of development of these four segments of commercial fleet were determined. A special period in the development of oil tankers segment in 2012-2013 is highlighted when under the influence of MARPOL 73/78 huge tonnage of the single hull oil tankers was phased out. The correlation analysis between the development of world commercial fleet and world seaborn trade was carried out. Strong correlations between the tonnage of oil tankers and oil and gas trade, tonnage of bulkers and bulk and other dry cargo trade, tonnage of container ships and container transportation were determined.

Chicago expressway system retrospective social benefits minus social costs analysis

The rising demand for transportation and its impact on global warming is a critical societal problem. There is a dearth of ex post facto studies that comprehensively quantify the value of an urban expressway system and its contribution to this dilemma. This article addresses the void with a retrospective social benefits minus social costs analysis of the Chicago city expressway system (project). Monetized values were included for externalities not available to planners when the decision was made to build the highway network. The results of this analysis revealed that net present value (NPV) was clearly positive and substantial. The study also analyzed a hypothetical alternative scenario without the project. This approach assumed internalized regionwide road pricing to account for most known social costs and address the Theory of the Second Best issue. The results showed that NPV is about 3 times higher compared to the project. The project had considerable opportunity costs of lost reductions in travel demand, accidents, environmental impacts, and other transport externalities. Estimated total deadweight loss of the project was more than $10,000 million (1960 $) over the period of 1947–1996 at a mid-range 5 percent discount rate. The outcome is highly dependent upon the assumed impact of optimal pricing on travel demand. Follow-up research is recommended to quantify impacts of comparable systemic roadway pricing under proposed scenarios of various highway capacities to assess impacts on welfare and carbon emissions.

Transmission Path Tracking of Maritime COVID-19 Pandemic via Ship Sailing Pattern Mining

Since the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the transportation of cargo by ship has been seriously impacted. In order to prevent and control maritime COVID-19 transmission, it is of great significance to track and predict ship sailing behavior. As the nodes of cargo ship transportation networks, ports of call can reflect the sailing behavior of the cargo ship. Accurate hierarchical division of ports of call can help to clarify the navigation law of ships with different ship types and scales. For typical cargo ships, ships with deadweight over 10,000 tonnages account for 95.77% of total deadweight, and 592,244 berthing ships’ records were mined from automatic identification system (AIS) from January to October 2020. Considering ship type and ship scale, port hierarchy classification models are constructed to divide these ports into three kinds of specialized ports, including bulk, container, and tanker ports. For all types of specialized ports (considering ship scale), port call probability for corresponding ship type is higher than other ships, positively correlated with the ship deadweight if port scale is bigger than ship scale, and negatively correlated with the ship deadweight if port scale is smaller than ship scale. Moreover, port call probability for its corresponding ship type is positively correlated with ship deadweight, while port call probability for other ship types is negatively correlated with ship deadweight. Results indicate that a specialized port hierarchical clustering algorithm can divide the hierarchical structure of typical cargo ship calling ports, and is an effective method to track the maritime transmission path of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spatial and temporal variations of recent shipping along the Northern Sea Route

Spatial and temporal variations of shipping along Russia's Northern Sea Route (NSR) were investigated to better understand the possible drivers of traffic levels and future trends. Daily information for ships sailing along the NSR were collected, and voyage-based analyses were conducted for a period from March 2013 to December 2018. Annual total dead weight tonnage (DWT) increased significantly from 3.95 million tons in 2013 to 24.61 million tons in 2018, and most of this was carried by dry cargo ships, oil tankers and LNG carriers between Europe and the Kara Sea. Annual total DWT was relatively high during 2015–2017 for dry cargo ships, whereas annual total DWT increased rapidly for oil tankers from 2016 and for LNG carriers in 2018. The relatively high level of shipping for dry cargo ships during 2015–2017 is attributable to the Yamal LNG project construction, while the rapidly increased annual total DWT for oil tankers and LNG carriers is due to the transportation of crude oil from the Novy Port project, and LNG from the Yamal LNG project. Recent NSR shipping is mainly driven by development and marine transportation of Russian Arctic natural resources, and this increasing trend should become faster in the near future as operation of the Arctic LNG-2, Taymyr coal and other projects are commissioned.

Design, manufacturing and installation of the JT-60SA vacuum vessel gravity support

In the operation of JT-60SA tokamak device, such loads as electromagnetic (horizontal and vertical loads of 2.5 MN and 7.5 MN, respectively) and seismic are imposed on the VV, and thermal expansion takes place during the baking of Vacuum Vessel (VV). The nine Vacuum Vessel Gravity Supports (GSs) have to support the loads and total dead weight of 400 tons including in-vessel components and compensate thermal deformation. Assembling to realize precise positioning of each GS to the VV is indispensable in the limited space between toroidal field coils. To meet the design requirements described above, a GS is equipped with an assembly of flexible plates (FPs) in its lower part and a stem in its upper part with external thread that is screwed upward on the internal thread of VV stub for installation. Electric discharge machining is applied to form FPs without welding. Narrow gap TIG and electron beam welding are also adopted to suppress welding distortion. By the FEM analysis-based design and successful product manufacturing, we have established a design concept and manufacturing technology of GS that has both stiffness and flexibility. The installation mock-up test of GS has also successfully finished.

Alternative representation of the deadweight loss triangle in oligopoly

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative way of calculating the deadweight loss triangle in oligopolistic markets which takes inefficient use of inputs into account. The author shows that the result of the approach coincides with the one that exists in the economics literature. However, the author explicitly accounts for the inefficient use of inputs.Design/methodology/approachThe market supply curve that is extensively used for competitive markets has been reconsidered for the imperfectly competitive markets. The necessary condition for the efficient use of resources is investigated and a price level is derived at which the market output of oligopoly is produced efficiently. The degree of inefficient use of inputs is reported via the definitions of Input Inefficiency Measure (IIM) and the Ratio of Inefficient usage of Inputs to Total Deadweight Loss (RITD).FindingsThe author discovers that the area under the supply curve of the competitive market corresponds precisely to the minimum total costs of producing any given market output. To make this important finding operational in imperfectly competitive markets, the IIM reports the degree of distorted input allocation among firms with differentiated cost structures in producing a given equilibrium imperfectly competitive market output. In measuring the monopoly power, it is known that CRn or HHI market concentration indexes, which are calculated based on the market shares of firms regarding the demand side of the market, are widely used. The measures, which take into account of the distortions in input usage, and hence, the supply side may be considered as an additional index. For example, if the market demand were shared equally by two firms (no dominant firm with respect to the demand side), it is known that the leadership would still arise when the costs of firms differed as in the dominant firm model in favor of the lower cost producing firm.Research limitations/implicationsThe author recommends some more theoretical research extensions of the approach suggested here to other oligopolistic markets like the Cournot-Nash, the Stackelberg and other models. In all cases, there is a need for additional work to find some measurable variables in practice in order to estimate the input inefficiency given by the two measures and differentiate it from the inefficiency of units of outputs that are not produced.Practical implicationsIt may be interesting to decompose the various estimates of welfare losses due to monopoly power as a percentage of GNP that were discussed in the literature into two inefficiency components: units of outputs that are not produced and units of inputs that are misallocated among firms.Social implicationsThe government officials might be interested in assessing the degree of loss of input usage by firms in addition to output loss in oligopolistic markets summarized by the two inefficiency indexes. Law economists may be inspired in discussing the issue of input inefficiency in the context of on antitrust policy.Originality/valueThe author emphasized that the area under the market supply curve minimized the aggregate cost of producing a given total market output in competitive markets. Having recognized the importance of this finding, the author tried to apply it to imperfectly competitive markets and especially to the calculation of deadweight loss in such markets. The author showed that the total social cost could be calculated by including the input inefficiency which can be defined as the extra cost to society arising from not using the most appropriate economic resource allocation among firms in addition to the usual deadweight loss triangle. Moreover, the author had to introduce some more new terms like the market supply curve allocation, the adjusted competitive price, efficiency gain and so on, as they were necessary along the course of the analysis.

An Investigation of the Vietnamese Shipping Industry and Policy Recommendations for Profound Participation into ASEAN Integration

Vietnam is a coastal country of a long history of maritime trade, which includes a shipping fleet of 1.840 ships with a total deadweight of 7.3 million DWT. This shipping fleet has been transporting about 90% of domestic sea cargo volume. Taking advantage of participating in the ASEAN community presents the shipping industry with a number of key challenges. These include unbalanced fleet proportions, which makes maximizing the shipping space available problematic; limited financial and managerial competences as well as outdated and inadequate infrastructure. The aim of this paper is to examine the Vietnam shipping industry and consider possible changes in policy led factors to facilitate the country's full participation in the ASEAN integration.

Model for Testing Compressive and Flexural Strength of Sisal Fibre Reinforced Compressed Earth Blocks in the Absence of Laboratory Facilities

This study proposes a method of indirectly evaluating strength and therefore durability characteristics of compressed earth blocks in the absence of the normally expensive laboratory facilities. The method, with respect to compressed earth blocks reinforced with sisal fibres, is recommended for application particularly in rural areas of Africa. The developed method entails loading a compressed earth block sample with increasing amounts of weight till the sample raptures (total dead weight) under the load. The weight is then taken and a comparison is made with the standard value of compressive and flexural strength of the said sample. A conversion factor between this developed method and the conventional way of determining compressive and flexural strength has been computed. It has been established that the total dead weight is 47.25 times the flexural strength while the same is 66.4 times the compressive strength. The primary advantage of the proposed method is that it can easily be adapted at village level by people who have little scientific knowledge.

Application of Price Gap and Adjustment Weights In Analyzing Import Quota

Government of an importing country limits its import size by imposing import tariff and quota. Given import quota, this paper finds formulae for the after quota price, domestic production and consumption sizes, deadweight losses, and for the quota rent all in terms of given quota and the three adjustment weights. Relative to free trade, an import quota does not fetch any welfare gain, rather results in dead-weight loss. This paper derives the lowest bound of an import quota that maximizes the quota rent net of total deadweight loss that an import quota results.

Investigation of VOC emissions from indoor and outdoor painting processes in shipyards

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from painting solvents are one of the most important sources of pollutant outputs for the shipbuilding and ship repair industry. Two ships of equal tonnage with the same painted area as each other, which were built in Turkish shipyards, are compared in terms of VOCs produced during painting and coating. Total area of all painted surfaces and total paint consumption of a 3500 deadweight tonne (DWT) oil/chemical tanker and a general cargo ship are calculated. An improved model for calculating the surface emissions of VOCs from painting and coating processes is utilized. Material balance emission estimation approach is employed to calculate the amount of VOCs, since it is used most often where a relatively large amount of material is emitted during use, and/or all air emissions are uncaptured. For both ships calculated VOCs are presented in figures. For the years 2005 and 2006 the total deadweight tonnage of ships delivered in Tuzla region, where 42 shipyards are located, is known. Therefore, a linear estimation is made to guess the total annual VOC emissions caused by painting operations. Finally, this information is used to project the total amount of VOCs emitted to the atmosphere for the year 2010.

Quantifying the Cost of Substandard Patents: Some Preliminary Evidence

The purpose of patent policy is to balance the incentive to invent against the ability of the economy to utilize and incorporate new inventions and innovations. Substandard patents that upset this balance impose deadweight losses and other costs on the economy. In this paper, we examine some of the deadweight losses that result from granting substandard patents in the United States. Under plausible assumptions, we find that the economic losses resulting from the grant of substandard patents can reach $21 billion per year by deterring valid research with an additional deadweight loss from litigation and administrative costs of $4.5 billion annually. This brings the total deadweight loss created by our “dented” patent system to be at least $25.5 billion annually. These estimates may be viewed as conservative because they do not take into account other economic costs from our existing patent system, such as the consumer welfare losses from granting monopoly rents to patent holders that have not, in the end, invented a novel product, or the full social value of the innovations lost.

Agency costs in U.S. manufacturing: An empirical measure using X-efficiency

By adapting the concept of X-inefficiency, the deadweight cost associated with agency problems is estimated for U.S. manufacturing industry. X-inefficiency theory postulates that agent’s opportunistic behavior will lead to second-best outcomes in imperfect markets. When the methodology is applied to the 1986/87 fiscal year, thirty industries are identified as X-inefficient. The total deadweight agency cost generated by these industries amounts to some $76 million. On average, in any given industry, agency costs represent two-tenths of one percent of that industry’s annual sales.