Economic regulation of liner conference agreements and similar cooperation agreemetns in the liner shipping evolved rapidly and this has had an impact on the structure of the industry. The industry had to cope with the challenges of globalisation and the need to provide scheduled services. This book presents the study which explored the relationship between the evolving economic regulation and the structural changes that the industry faced in the period 1980s to late 2000. Recently the Eurupean Union has repealed EC Regulation 4056/86, with effect from 18 October 2008. However, the likely impact of this is not explored in this book since it was completed much earlier than the changes brought about in the regulations recently. This book is important in its treatment of the history of economic regulation and the analytical insight to the structural changes that the industry experienced during the period under study.