Abstract
Liner shipping has traditionally dominated international movements of general cargo. This situation was stable from the middle of last to the second half of this century but in the 1960s a new era of economic and political changes led to far-reaching restructuring of the liner industry on short-sea as well as deep-sea markets. This dissertation is focussed on four questions: What tendencies have dominated the development of international liner shipping and what are the perspectives for the future? What interdependences guide the consignor in his choice of transport alternative and by what models and methods can they be studied? What tendencies dominated modal and port redistribution of general and break-bulk cargo flows in the foreign trade of an industrialized country like Sweden? How useful is an econometric approach in the analysis of modal and port distribution of general cargo flows? The study shows that structural changes on the short-sea markets, characterizing the 1960s and 1970s, were the result of growing competition from road transports. In the deep-sea markets they were caused by technical innovations within the liner industry and by pressure from various political blocks.