MARITIME ECONOMICS AND SEABORNE TRADE IN CURRENT STUDIES OF SCIENTISTS FROM POST-SOVIET STATES

The article discusses current studies of scientists from the post-Soviet states on maritime economics and seaborne trade. It is identified that although subject matter is raised by scientists from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Moldova, predominantly Ukrainian and Russian scholars are engaged in maritime economics researches, and their publications are systemized into three main groups in this article: global market of maritime transportation services (including freight market), functioning of shipping companies and maritime transport of Ukraine. It is ascertained that the general peculiarities of post-Soviet researches are their descriptive character and limited practical use in comparison to European and American ones whose current trend lies in more detailed and specified analysis of the world seaborne trade. Scientific interests of foreign scholars are focused on macroeconomic processes and global events and their influence on structural changes in the world seaborne trade, estimation of correlation between different macroeconomic fundamentals and indicators of trade, stock and freight markets. Another distinction between post-Soviet and foreign papers is an emphasis of the latter on the new methodology elaboration for the sake of more precise scientific modelling of the world seaborne trade volumes and nowcasting trade data, and also researches on freight rates determinants and both freight market cycles and fluctuation characteristics. The latest European and American studies also pay attention to various maritime spillover effects along with seaborne trade supply and demand disruptions caused by covid-19 pandemic outbreak, and also impact of associated with pandemic lockdown steps imposed by different countries, e.g. constructing a measure of lockdown exposure to trace its effect on seaborne trade. This is exactly what further perspective of maritime economics scientific activity should aim at. Potentially actual flag topic isn’t exhausted in the Ukrainian scholars’ papers, likewise the development of recommendations of how to implement in Ukraine the experience of Cyprus, Malta and other European countries with flags of convenience.