Containership size and quay crane productivity: empirical evidence from Busan New Port

Byungkwon Jeong and Chi Yeol Kim ()
Additional contact information
Byungkwon Jeong: HMM PSA New-Port Terminal
Chi Yeol Kim: Korea Maritime and Ocean University

Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2025, vol. 27, issue 2, No 3, 293-303

Abstract: Abstract There is an unfolding phenomenon in the liner shipping sector that the cargo-carrying capacity of containerships continues to increase since the 1980s. While the main driver of the ship size increase is to achieve economies of scale by reducing unit costs, a plethora of studies in the maritime field have pointed out to the diseconomies of scale in port and along the supply chain. It is therefore of utmost importance to investigate the impact of the increase in the containership size on port operations. In this regard, this paper highlights the relationship between ship size and quay crane productivity by analysing a monthly dataset obtained from 5 container terminal operators in Busan New Port in the period 2013–2023. The impact of ship size on quay crane productivity is estimated in panel regressions controlling for berth and yard occupancy, container throughput. Consistent with the theoretical expectations in the earlier maritime literature, it is found that quay crane productivity is negatively affected by containership size and this relationship is robust also when yard congestion is considered as a controlling factor.

Keywords: Containership size; Megaships; Quay crane productivity; Busan New Port; Diseconomies of scale; Container terminals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41278-024-00286-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:marecl:v:27:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1057_s41278-024-00286-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41278/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41278-024-00286-0

Access Statistics for this article

Maritime Economics & Logistics is currently edited by Hercules E. Haralambides

More articles in Maritime Economics & Logistics from Palgrave Macmillan, International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().