  We construct a novel unified merger list in the global container shipping
industry between 1966 (the beginning of the industry) and 2022. Combining the
list with proprietary data, we construct a structural matching model to
describe the historical transition of the importance of a firm's age, size, and
geographical proximity on merger decisions. We find that, as a positive factor,
a firm's size is more important than a firm's age by 9.974 times as a merger
incentive between 1991 and 2005. However, between 2006 and 2022, as a negative
factor, a firm's size is more important than a firm's age by 0.026-0.630 times,
that is, a firm's size works as a disincentive. We also find that the distance
between buyer and seller firms works as a disincentive for the whole period,
but the importance has dwindled to economic insignificance in recent years. In
counterfactual simulations, we observe that the prohibition of mergers between
firms in the same country would affect the merger configuration of not only the
firms involved in prohibited mergers but also those involved in permitted
mergers. Finally, we present interview-based evidence of the consistency
between our merger lists, estimations, and counterfactual simulations with the
industry experts' historical experiences.
