The impact of governance on the technical efficiency of container ports

Nicole Adler, Georg Hirte, Shravan Kumar and Hans-Martin Niemeier

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2025, vol. 199, issue C

Abstract: We examine the impact of ownership, competition and regulation on the technical efficiency of container ports, with a focus on governance-related factors. We employ stochastic frontier analysis to investigate the interplay between privatization levels, hinterland and transhipment competition and economic regulators across the Far East and Asian regions. Our findings suggest that independent regulators foster higher technical efficiency compared to regulation by government ministries or port authorities. Moreover, majority privately owned ports demonstrate higher technical efficiency than those with minority private ownership. Additionally, our results reveal that transhipment competition positively affects container port efficiency. Perhaps surprisingly, the independence of the economic regulator is more critical to technical efficiency than hinterland competition. We recommend that policymakers promote the independence of regulators and encourage privatization to enhance the technical efficiency of container ports, thereby strengthening global supply chains.

Keywords: Container ports; Stochastic frontier analysis; Governance; Ownership; Competition; Economic regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096585642500206X
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:transa:v:199:y:2025:i:c:s096585642500206x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2025.104578

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice is currently edited by John (J.M.) Rose

More articles in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().