A Co-integration Approach to Forecasting Container Carriers' Time Charter Rates

A vector autoregressive model was developed for a sample of container carrier time charter rates. Although the series of time charter rates are themselves found non-stationary, thus precluding the use of many modeling methodologies, evidence provided by co-integration tests points to the existence of stable long-term relationships between the series. An assessment of the forecasts derived from the model suggests that the spec-ification of these long-term relationships does not improve the accuracy of long-term forecasts. These results are interpreted as a corroboration of the efficient market hypothesis.