## 4 Empirical Analysis
### VARM Analysis  
Analysis Overview  
Among the companies listed in the Transportation Sector of the Fortune Global 500, 23 are involved in global logistics. However, eight companies, including China Post Group (ranked 86 th), DHL Group (103 rd), U.S. Postal Service (159 th), China Merchants Group (175 th), La Poste (403 rd), Deutsche Bahn (232 nd), SNCF Group (340 th), and China State Shipbuilding (272 nd), are private companies; their stock prices are not available. Thus, the analysis was conducted on only the 15 publicly traded companies. Table 2 shows the dataset of the VARM analysis form November 2015 to December 2023.  
The airline industry comprised four companies: Delta Air Lines (ranked 280 th), American Airlines Group (291 st), United Airlines Holdings (326 th), and Lufthansa Group (439 th). The integrated logistics industry (mail, package, and freight delivery) consisted of United Parcel Service, FedEx, and DSV. The pipeline industry firms were DSV, Energy Transfer, Enterprise Products Partners, Plains GP Holdings, Enbridge, and Cheniere Energy. Finally, there were three companies in the shipping industry: COSCO Shipping, the Maersk Group, and Hapag-Lloyd.  
For the VARM analysis, the period from 30 November 2015 to 31 December 2023 was selected. This was based on the operating period of Hapag-Lloyd, the most recently listed company. The stock prices of the global logistics companies were based on the opening price of the last trading day of each month, provided by Yahoo Finance. The GSCPI data were obtained from the monthly reports of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline Year & **30 November** & **31 December** & **31 January** & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**31 October**} & **30 November** & **31 December** \\  & **2015** & **2015** & **2016** & **—** & **2023** & **2023** & **2023** \\ \hline Delta Air Lines & 46.81 & 49.42 & 44.73 & — & 31.39 & 36.98 & 39.97 \\ American Airlines Group & 41.47 & 41.29 & 39.00 & — & 11.11 & 12.46 & 13.65 \\ United Airlines Holdings & 55.68 & 55.79 & 47.71 & — & 35.01 & 39.48 & 41.13 \\ Lufthansa Group & 13.64 & 14.57 & 13.54 & — & 6.68 & 8.02 & 7.93 \\ United Parcel Service & 103.46 & 95.34 & 92.04 & — & 141.38 & 151.99 & 156.94 \\ FedEx & 159.41 & 146.41 & 131.61 & — & 141.38 & 151.99 & 156.94 \\ DSV & 275.70 & 271.70 & 270.00 & — & 1057.00 & 1036.00 & 1188.50 \\ Energy Transfer & 18.93 & 13.62 & 8.53 & — & 13.12 & 13.86 & 13.78 \\ Enterprise Products Partners & 25.40 & 25.69 & 23.53 & — & 26.00 & 26.75 & 26.41 \\ Plains GP Holdings & 34.13 & 24.48 & 20.93 & — & 15.79 & 16.14 & 16.00 \\ Enbridge & 35.46 & 32.62 & 33.91 & — & 32.18 & 34.87 & 36.03 \\ Cheniere Energy & 48.14 & 37.01 & 29.33 & — & 167.37 & 181.00 & 170.70 \\ COSCO Shipping & 3.80 & 2.71 & 2.12 & — & 7.90 & 7.24 & 7.91 \\ Maersk Group & 7.62 & 6.48 & 6.47 & — & 8.30 & 7.83 & 9.41 \\ Hapag-Lloyd & 19.59 & 19.92 & 16.44 & — & 135.30 & 114.60 & 140.00 \\ CSCPI & \(-\)0.63 & \(-\)0.57 & \(-\)0.75 & — & \(-\)0.38 & 0.13 & \(-\)0.15 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} Source: Authors’ own compilation.  
\end{table}
Table 2: Dataset of the VARM analysis (November 2015-December 2023).  
Figure 2: Flow diagram of the empirical analysis. Source: Authors’ own compilation.