Group and individual heterogeneity in a stochastic frontier model: Container terminal operators

Tsz Leung Yip, Xin Yu Sun and John J. Liu

European Journal of Operational Research, 2011, vol. 213, issue 3, 517-525

Abstract: Container ports are a major component of international trade and the global supply chain. Hence, the improvement of port efficiency can have a significant impact on the wider maritime economy. This paper deconstructs a representation in the existing literature that neglects the heterogeneity of individual and group-specific terminal operators. In its place, we present a hierarchical model to make a connection between efficiency and terminal operator group characteristics. The paper develops a stochastic frontier model that controls not only individual heterogeneity but also group-specific variations. The model decomposes the total stochastic derivation from the frontier into inefficiency, individual heterogeneity, group-specific variations, and noise components, with the estimation being performed using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations. The validity of the model is tested with a panel of container terminal operator data from 1997-2004. Our findings show that terminal operator groups are important in promoting terminal efficiency at the global level, and that the operators with stevedore backgrounds show a higher efficiency than carriers.

Keywords: Stochastic; processes; Stochastic; production; frontier; Markov; processes; Container; terminal; operators; Port; globalisation; Group-specific (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221711002773
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:ejores:v:213:y:2011:i:3:p:517-525

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().