Yi, Kei-Mu2020-06-032020-06-03May 20202020-05May 2020https://hdl.handle.net/10657/6637This dissertation investigates empirically and quantitatively the determinants of containerization in the United States. Although containers were introduced in international trade in 1966, not all exports that could be containerized are containerized. The containerized share of containerizable exports grew from 61 percent in 2010 to 69 percent in 2018. The majority of this growth is driven by increase in the share of each product that is containerized, rather than a shift from exports of products that are less containerized towards exports of products that are highly containerized. This finding is consistent with supply shocks, such as declining container transport costs, as the driver of growth in containerization. Product-level regressions show that changes in containerized export shares respond negatively to changes in container transport costs caused by technological improvement in the container transport industry. I also find the effects are heterogeneous across products. Finally, to quantify the welfare gains associated with containerization, I develop a multi-country general equilibrium trade model with endogenous transport costs in which heterogeneous firms make both export and transport decisions.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).TransportationTransport CostsContainer ShippingTrade Flows2020-06-03Thesisborn digital