| Descript |
114 p |
| Note |
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-09, Section: A, page: 3365 |
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Co-Chairs: Raymond C. Battalio; Thomas R. Saving |
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas A&M University, 1991 |
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This dissertation provides both theoretical and empirical insights on tanker owner behavior and tanker operator performance in the oil tanker transportation industry. Furthermore, it develops an econometric method to estimate and analyze cost and production structures of oil tanker transportation |
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Three models concerning the economic analysis of the oil tanker market are considered in this dissertation |
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The first model studies the behavior of a risk-neutral tanker owner under a stochastic framework. I use a dynamic linear rational expectations model to explore the tanker owner's decisions regarding his tanker fleet in response to freight rate changes. The model assumes that the tanker owner operates in a competitive tanker market, in the sense that the stochastic freight rates are exogenously given in the model. In order to obtain explicit solutions of the tanker owner's optimal plans, I exploit a popular linear-quadratic rational expectations model. The tanker owner's optimal decision rules on the allocations of the spot, time-charter, and laid-up tanker fleet are derived. The estimation strategy of structural, behaviorally invariant parameters of the model under the hypothesis of rational expectations is also illustrated |
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The second model in the dissertation investigates the economic performance of oil tanker operations. The productivity growth of the tanker industry is explored. A general index of technical change developed by Baltagi and Griffin (1988) is used to examine the rate of technical change of the U.S. flag tankers from 1978 to 1984. With the advantages of panel data, the translog cost model is used to formulate the general index of technical change. To derive the general index, I first estimate parameters of the translog cost function and then use the estimated results to calculate the index of technical change. In addition, to understand the underlying technological characteristics of tanker operations, I examine the cost structures and scale economies of the tanker industry |
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The third model of the dissertation compares econometric techniques using panel data to estimate a system of the multivariate translog model. The equation system for the translog cost model consists of a cost function and input-share equations which are used in specifying the model. The proposed technique, which assumes random effects for the unobservable variables, and the conventional technique, which assumes fixed effects of the unobservable variables, are applied to panel data consisting of forty U.S. tankers for the 1978-1984 period. Specification tests are performed, and they favor the random-effect model over the fixed-effect model |
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School code: 0803 |
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DDC |
| Host Item |
Dissertation Abstracts International 52-09A
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| Subject |
Economics, General
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0501
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| Alt Author |
Texas A&M University
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