Myrto Kalouptsidi: A Maritime Mind

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Profile of Myrto Kalouptsidi (Harvard) by Jeff Kearns, F&D Magazine, March 2026.
Focus: how shipping and industrial policy shape the global economy, and Kalouptsidi’s empirical and modeling contributions to understanding maritime markets and trade.

Shipping enables "$20 trillion a year in international trade."
Identified how shipping costs and transportation markets shape global trade patterns and bilateral trade imbalances.
Developed methods to detect and quantify industrial subsidies and their global effects on shipbuilding.
Demonstrated network effects in port investment: investment in one port can reduce congestion elsewhere.

Built a dataset tracking "5,398 ships between 2012 and 2016" with price and route data based on "12,007 shipping contracts."
Used modeling of transportation markets including the cargo–ship matching process and general equilibrium experiments.
Employed structural models to detect subsidies by identifying deviations from standard economic theory.
Leveraged automatic identification system tracking (vessel names, locations, and other parameters) and samples of specific container rates and routes for ongoing container research.

Model experiments:
- Found that ships sail empty close to half the time.
- Simulated Suez Canal closure: would reduce world trade by "3.5 percent"; in the Middle East "trade would fall by a quarter" and welfare metrics would "plunge."
- Simulated effects of an economic slowdown in China: fewer imports would mean fewer ships visiting China, which would hurt China’s exports.
Industrial policy and shipbuilding:
- China set a goal in "2002" to become the world’s top shipbuilder by "2015" and achieved it through state-subsidized shipyards, generous loans, and other support.
- Subsidies propped up weak shipyards, inflated prices, sidelined more efficient producers, and created excess capacity.
- Domestic producers recorded only modest profit gains; long-term returns amounted to only "18 percent of the total of subsidies," according to the authors’ quantified results.
Historical volatility:
- The Baltic Dry Index "quadrupled in two years—then plunged more than 90 percent in late 2008," illustrating extreme shipping-market volatility.

Industrial policy assessment:
- Structural detection of subsidies is necessary because subsidies are often complicated and opaque.
- Policymakers should evaluate long-term returns to domestic producers versus the fiscal cost of subsidies; evidence shows subsidies can deliver limited domestic returns while reshaping global competition.
Port and infrastructure investment:
- Capital investment should be coordinated and targeted across regional ports because ports function like a network and investments in one port can alleviate congestion elsewhere.
Trade resilience:
- Recognize shipping as critical infrastructure—"Shipping is basically the spine of the economy." Policy should account for fragility in global supply chains and the macroeconomic consequences of shipping disruptions (including inflationary effects).

Work awarded the Econometric Society’s biennial Frisch Medal in 2022 for modeling transportation markets and tracing general equilibrium implications.
Praised by peers for combining industry knowledge with rigorous structural frameworks and for bringing attention to industrial policy effects before the broader research community.
Influenced policymakers’ frameworks for assessing subsidies, capacity expansions, and global competition in shipbuilding.

Education and early career:
- Undergraduate: University of Athens; master’s in economics at Athens University of Economics and Business in "2005"; doctorate at Yale in "2011."
- Thesis published in the American Economic Review on how ship construction time affects vessel investment.
Personal and intellectual origins:
- Born and raised in Athens; early exposure to shipping through personal contacts in Piraeus and mentorship from industry figures such as George Banos.
- Married to Theodore Papageorgiou (Boston College economist and frequent collaborator).
Current and future research:
- Ongoing work returning to container shipping with collaborators Giulia Brancaccio, Theodore Papageorgiou, and Nicola Rosaia, enabled by improved data availability for container routes and rates.
- Continues to examine how shocks in shipping propagate to broader macroeconomic outcomes.

Source: Jeff Kearns, Myrto Kalouptsidi: A Maritime Mind, F&D Magazine, March 2026.

A Maritime Mind
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