When American President Lines studied the matter a few years later, it concluded that freight rates from Asia to North America had fallen 40 to 60 percent because of the container. Between 1966 and 1990, economists Daniel M. Bernhofen, Zouheir El-Sahli, and Richard Kneller reported in 2013, the container was more than twice as important in increasing the flow of international trade among the wealthy countries as governments’ efforts to eliminate formal trade barriers. The box made the world economy much, much bigger.
