The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

by Marc Levinson

  Gibson, Andrew, and Arthur Donovan. The Abandoned Ocean: A History of United States Maritime Policy. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000.

  Glaskowsky Nicholas A., Jr., ed. Management for Tomorrow. Stanford, CA: Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 1958.

  Gómez-Ibañez, José A., William B. Tye, and Clifford Winston, eds. Essays in Transportation Economics and Policy: A Handbook in Honor of John R. Meyer. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999.

  Griffin, John I. The Port of New York. New York: Arco Publishing, 1959.

  Grunwald, Joseph, and Kenneth Flamm. The Global Factory: Foreign Assembly in International Trade. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1985.

  Hagel, Otto, and Louis Goldblatt. Men and Machines: A Story about Long-shoring on the West Coast Waterfront. San Francisco: Pacific Maritime Association and International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, 1963.

  Haig, Robert Murray. Major Economic Factors in Metropolitan Growth and Arrangement. New York: Regional Plan Association, 1927. Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1974.

  Hannes, Matt. The Container Revolution. Anaheim: Canterbury Press, 1996.

  Hartman, Paul T. Collective Bargaining and Productivity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.

  Heilbrun, James. Urban Economics and Public Policy. New York: St. Martin’s, 1974.

  Heiser, Joseph M. Jr. A Soldier Supporting Soldiers. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1991.

  _. Vietnam Studies: Logistic Support. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974.

  Herod, Andrew. Labor Geographies: Workers and the Landscapes of Capitalism. New York: Guilford Press, 2001.

  Hooper, Edwin B. Mobility Support Endurance: A Story of Naval Operational Logistics in the Vietnam War, 1965–1968. Washington, DC: Naval History Division, 1972.

  Hoover, Edgar M., and Raymond Vernon. Anatomy of a Metropolis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.

  Immer, John R. Container Services of the Atlantic, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Work Saving International, 1970.

  International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union. The ILWU Story: Two Decades of Militant Unionism. San Francisco: ILWU, 1955.

  Jensen, Vernon. Hiring of Dock Workers and Employment Practices in the Ports of New York, Liverpool, London, Rotterdam, and Marseilles. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.

  _. Strife on the Waterfront. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974.

  Kessner, Thomas. Fiorello H. LaGuardia and the Making of Modern New York. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989.

  Kimeldorf, Howard. Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.

  Kirsh, Benjamin S. Automation and Collective Bargaining. New York: Central Book Co., 1964.

  Kornhauser, Arthur, Robert Dublin, and Arthur M. Ross, eds. Industrial Conflict. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954.

  Kreps, Juanita M. Automation and Employment. New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1964.

  Larrowe, Charles P. Harry Bridges: The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the United States. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1972.

  _Shape Up and Hiring Hall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955.

  Larson, John L. Internal Improvement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

  Latimer, Jack. Friendship among Equals. Geneva: International Standards Organisation, 1997.

  Lockwood, Rupert. Ship to Shore: A History of Melbourne’s Waterfront and its Union Struggles. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1990.

  Magden, Ronald E. The Working Longshoreman. Tacoma: International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union Local 23, 1996.

  Magden, Ronald E., and A. D. Martinson. The Working Waterfront: The Story of Tacoma’s Ships and Men. Tacoma: International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union Local 23 and Port of Tacoma, 1982.

  Maldonado, A. W. Teodoro Moscoso and Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.

  Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict. Vol. 2, From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959–1965. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986.

  McDougall, Ian. Voices of Leith Dockers. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 2001.

  McNickle, Chris. To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

  Minor, Woodruff. Pacific Gateway: An Illustrated History of the Port of Oakland. Oakland: Port of Oakland, 2000.

  Mokyr, Joel. Tbe Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

  Mollenkopf, John, and Manuel Castells, eds. Dual City: Restructuring New York. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992.

  Moses, Robert. Public Works: A Dangerous Trade. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970.

  Nelson, Bruce. Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

  _. Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1990.

  Niven, John. American President Lines and Its Forebears, 1848–1984. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987.

  North Carolina: A Guide to the Old North State. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939.

  O’Rourke, Kevin H., and Jeffrey G. Williamson. Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.

  Pacini, Alfred, and Dominique Pons. Docker à Marseille. Paris: Payot & Rivages, 1996.

  Pearson, Roy, and John Fossey. World Deep-Sea Container Shipping: A Geographical, Economic, and Statistical Analysis. Liverpool: Marine Transport Centre, University of Liverpool, 1983.

  Pelzman, Sam, and Clifford Winston, eds. Deregulation of Network Industries: What’s Next? Washington, DC: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, 2000.

  Pilcher, William W. The Portland Longshoremen: A Dispersed Urban Community. New York: Norton, 1972.

  Pinder, David, and Brian Slack, eds. Shipping and Ports in the Twenty-first Century: Globalisation, Technological Change, and the Environment. London: Routledge, 2004.

  Pollak, Richard. The Colombo Bay. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

  Rath, Eric. Container Systems. New York, Wiley, 1973.

  Ricardo, David. The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. London, 1821. Reprint, New York, 1965.

  Rosenberg, Daniel. New Orleans Dockworkers: Race, Labor, and Unionism, 1892–1923. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.

  Rostow, W. W. Stages of Economic Growth. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1960.

  Rubin, Lester. The Negro in the Longshore Industry. Philadelphia: Wharton School, 1974.

  Ruppenthal, Karl M., ed. Revolution in Transportation. Stanford: Stanford University Graduate School of Business, 1960.

  Sayre, Wallace S., and Herbert Kaufman. Governing New York City: Politics in the Metropolis. New York: Norton, 1960.

  Schenker, Eric, and Harry C. Brockel, eds. Port Planning and Development as Related to Problems of U.S. Ports and the U.S. Coastal Environment. Cambridge, MD: Maritime Press of America, 1974.

  Schwartz, Stephen. Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific, 1885–1985. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Books, 1986.

  Seligman, Ben B. Most Notorious Victory: Man in an Age of Automation. New York: Free Press, 1966.

  Selvin, David F. A Terrible Anger. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996.

  Shields, Jerry. The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

  Simey, T. S., ed., The Dock Worker: An Analysis of Conditions of Employment in the Port of Manchester. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1956.

  Sletmo, Gunnar K., and Ernest W. Williams, Jr. Liner Conferences in the Container Age: U.S. Policy at Sea. New York: Macmi
llan Publishing, 1981.

  Snyder-Grenier, Ellen M. Brooklyn! An Illustrated History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.

  Starr, Roger. The Rise and Fall of New York City. New York: Basic Books, 1985.

  Tursi, Frank V., Susan E. White, and Steve McQuilkin. Lost Empire: The Fall of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Winston-Salem: Winston-Salem Journal, 2000.

  Vernon, Raymond. Metropolis 1985: An Interpretation of the Findings of the New York Metropolitan Region Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.

  Whittaker, J. R. Containerization. Washington, DC: Hemisphere Publishing, 1975.

  Williams, Ernest W. The Regulation of Rail-Motor Rate Competition. New York: Harper, 1958.

  Wilson, David F. Dockers: The Impact of Industrial Change. London: Fontana, 1972.

  Wilson, Rosalyn A. Transportation in America. Washington, DC: Eno Transportation Foundation, 2002.

  Winston, Clifford, Thomas M. Corsi, Curtis M. Grimm, and Carol A. Evans. The Economic Effects of Surface Freight Deregulation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1990.

  Worden, William L. Cargoes: Matson’s First Century in the Pacific. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1981.

  Zweig, Phillip L. Wriston: Walter Wriston, Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy. New York: Crown Publishers, 1995.

  Articles and Working Papers

  Anderson, James E., and Eric van Wincoop. “Trade Costs.” Journal of Economic Literature 42 (September 2004): 691–751.

  Baer, Werner. “Puerto Rico: An Evaluation of a Successful Development Program.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 73, no. 4 (1959).

  Beier, Frederick J., and Stephen W. Frick. “The Limits of Piggyback: Light at the End of the Tunnel.” Transportation Journal 18, no. 2 (1978).

  Bougheas, Spiros, Panicos O. Demetriades, and Edgar L. W. Morgenroth. “Infrastructure, Transport Costs, and Trade.” Journal of International Economics 47 (1999).

  Broda, Christian, and David E. Weinstein. “Globalization and the Gains from Variety.” Working Paper 10314, NBER, February 2004.

  Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Lorin M. Hitt. “Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation, and Business Performance.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 4 (2000).

  Carrere, Céline, and Maurice Schiff. “On the Geography of Trade: Distance Is Alive and Well.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3206, February 2004.

  Carruthers, Robin, and Jitendra N. Bajpai. “Trends in Trade and Logistics: An East Asian Perspective.” Working Paper No. 2, Transport Sector Unit, World Bank (2002).

  Chen, Hong, Murray Z. Brank, and Owen Q. Wu. “U.S. Retail and Wholesale Inventory Performance from 1981 to 2003.” Working Paper, University of British Columbia, 2005.

  Clark, Ximena, David Dollar, and Alejandro Micco, “Port Efficiency, Maritime Transport Costs, and Bilateral Trade.” Journal of Development Economics 74, no. 3 (2004): 417–450.

  Coe, David, et al. “The Missing Globalization Puzzle.” International Monetary Fund Working Paper WP/02/171, October 2002.

  Connolly, D. J. “Social Repercussions of New Cargo Handling Methods in the Port of London.” International Labour Review 105 (1972): 543–568.

  Cushing, Charles R. “The Development of Cargo Ships in the United States and Canada in the Last Fifty Years.” Manuscript, January 8, 1992.

  David, Paul A. “The Dynamo and the Computer: An Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox.” American Economic Review 80 (1990): 355–361.

  Davies, J. E. “An Analysis of Cost and Supply Conditions in the Liner Shipping Industry.” Journal of Industrial Economics 31 (1983): 417–436.

  Dempsey, Paul Stephen. “The Law of Intermodal Transportation: What It Was, What It Is, What It Should Be.” Transportation Law Journal 27, no. 3 (2000).

  Devine, Warren D., Jr. “From Shafts to Wires: Historical Perspective on Electrification.” Journal of Economic History 43 (1983): 347–372.

  Egedyi, Tineke M. “The Standardized Container: Gateway Technologies in Cargo Transportation.” Working Paper, Delft University of Technology, 2000.

  Farrell, Joseph, and Garth Saloner. “Installed Base and Compatibility: Innovation, Product Preannouncements, and Predation.” American Economic Review 76, no. 5 (1986): 940–955.

  Feenstra, Robert. “Integration of Trade and Disintegration of Production in the Global Economy.” Journal of Economic Perspectives. 12, no. 4 (1998).

  Fishlow, Albert. “Antebellum Regional Trade Reconsidered.” American Economic Review (1965).

  Fujita, Masahisa, and Tomoya Mori. “The Role of Ports in the Making of Major Cities: Self-Agglomeration and Hub-Effect.” Journal of Development Economics 49 (1996).

  Gilman, Roger H. “The Port, a Focal Point.” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 1958.

  Glaeser, Edward L. “Reinventing Boston: 1640–2003.” Working Paper No. 10166, National Bureau of Economic Research (2003).

  Glaeser, Edward L., and Janet E. Kohlhase. “Cities, Regions, and the Decline of Transport Costs.” Working Paper No. 9886, National Bureau of Economic Research (2003).

  Godfrey, Brian J. “Restructuring and Decentralization in a World City.” Geographical Review (thematic issue, American Urban Geography) 85 (1995).

  Hall, John, and D. Caradog Jones. “Social Grading of Occupations.” British Journal of Sociology 1 (1950): 31–55.

  Harbeson, Robert W. “Recent Trends in the Regulation of Intermodal Rate Competition in Transportation.” Land Economics 42, no. 3 (1966).

  Harlander, L.A. “Container System Design Developments over Two Decades.” Marine Technology 19 (1982): 364–376.

  _. “Engineering Development of a Container System for the West Coast-Hawaiian Trade.” Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers 68 (1960).

  _. “Further Development of a Container System for the West Coast-Hawaiian Trade.” Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers 69 (1961).

  _. “The Role of the 24-Foot Container in Intermodal Transportation.” Paper for American Standards Association MH-5 Sectional Committee, June 1966.

  Helle, Horst Jürgen. “Der Hafenarbeiter zwischen Segelschiff und Vollbeschäftigung.” Economisch en Sociaal Tijdschrift 19, no. 4 (1965).

  Hoare, Anthony. “British Ports and Their Export Hinterlands: A Rapidly Changing Geography.” Geografiska Annaler, Series B. Human Geography 68, no. 1 (1986).

  Hopper, A. G., P. H. Judd, and G. Williams. “Cargo Handling and Its Effect on Dry Cargo Ship Design.” Quarterly Transactions of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects 106, no. 2 (1964).

  Hummels, David. “Have International Transportation Costs Declined?” Working Paper, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, 1999.

  _. “Time as a Trade Barrier.” Mimeo, Purdue University, 2001.

  _. “Towards a Geography of Trade Costs.” Mimeo, University of Chicago, 1999.

  Isard, Caroline, and Walter Isard. “Economic Implications of Aircraft.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 59 (1945): 145–169.

  Jorgenson, Dale W., and Kevin J. Stiroh. “Information Technology and Growth.” American Economic Review 89, no. 2 (1999): 109–115.

  Katz, Michael L., and Carl Shapiro. “Systems Competition and Network Effects.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8, no. 2 (1994): 93–115.

  Kelley, Robin D. G. “‘We Are Not What We Seem’: Rethinking Black Working-Class Opposition in the Jim Crow South.” Journal of American History 80, no. 1 (1993).

  Kerr, Clark, and Lloyd Fisher. “Conflict on the Waterfront.” Atlantic 184, no. 3 (1949).

  King, Robert C., George M. Adams, and G. Lloyd Wilson, “The Freight Container as a Contribution to Efficiency in Transportation.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 187 (1936): 27–36.

  Konishi, Hideo. “Formation of Hub Cities: Transportation Cost Advantage and Population Agglomeration.” Journal of Urban Economics
48 (2000).

  Kovarsky, Irving. “State Piggyback Statutes and Federalism.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 18, no. 1 (1964).

  Krausse, Gerald H. “The Urban Coast in Singapore: Uses and Management.” Asian Journal of Public Administration 5, no. 1 (June 1983): 33–67.

  Krugman, Paul. “Growing World Trade: Causes and Consequences.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1995, no. 1 (1995): 327–377.

  _. “Increasing Returns and Economic Geography.” Journal of Political Economy 99, no. 3 (1991): 483–499.

  Krugman, Paul, and Anthony J. Venables. “Globalization and the Inequality of Nations.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, no. 4 (1995): 857–880.

  Kuby, Michael, and Neil Reid, “Technological Change and the Concentration of the U.S. General Cargo Port System: 1970–88.” Economic Geography 68, no. 3 (1993).

  Kujovich, Mary Yeager. “The Refrigerator Car and the Growth of the American Dressed Beef Industry.” Business History Review 44 (1970): 460–482.

  Lamoreaux, Naomi R., Daniel M. G. Raff, and Peter Temin. “Beyond Markets and Hierarchies: Toward a New Synthesis of American Business History.” American Historical Review 108 (2003).

  Larson, Paul D., and H. Barry Spraggins. “The American Railroad Industry: Twenty Years after Staggers.” Transportation Quarterly 52, no. 2 (2000): 5–9.

  Lieb, Robert C., and Robert A. Miller. “JIT and Corporate Transportation Requirements.” Transportation Journal 27, no. 3 (1988): 5–10.

  Liebowitz, S. J., and Stephen E. Margolis. “Network Externality: An Uncommon Tragedy.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8, no. 2 (1994): 133–150.

  Limão Nuno and Anthony J. Venables. “Infrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage and Transport Costs.” World Bank Economic Review 15, no. 3 (2001): 451–479.

  Linge, G.J.R. “Just-in-Time: More or Less Flexible?” Economic Geography 67, no. 4 (1991): 316–332.

  MacMillan, Douglas C., and T. B. Westfall. “Competitive General Cargo Ships.” Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers 68 (1960).

  Manning, Seaton Wesley. “Negro Trade Unionists in Boston.” Social Forces 17, no. 2 (1938).