Port Efficiency and International Trade: Port Efficiency as a Determinant of Maritime Transport Costs

Ricardo J Sánchez, Jan Hoffmann, Alejandro Micco (), Georgina Pizzolitto (), Martín Sgut and Gordon Wilmsmeier
Additional contact information
Ricardo J Sánchez: Austral University, Argentina
Jan Hoffmann: Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean, Santiago, Chile
Martín Sgut: Austral University, Argentina

Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2003, vol. 5, issue 2, 199-218

Abstract: This paper examines the determinants of waterborne transport costs, with particular emphasis on the efficiency at port level. Its main contribution is (1) to generate statistically quantifiable measures of port efficiency from a survey of Latin American common user ports, and (2) to estimate a model of waterborne transport costs, including the previously generated port efficiency measures as explanatory variables. In order to incorporate different port efficiency measures from the survey, we use principal component analysis (PCA). Our estimations show that the specified variables in the model explain a great proportion of the change in waterborne transport costs. With regard to port efficiency, the result is especially important for one of the port efficiency measures obtained through PCA with an estimated elasticity equivalent to that of distance. Other explanatory variables which show to be statistically significant are the monthly liner service availability, distance, and the goods' value per ton. The conclusions are relevant for policy makers as they show and quantify that port efficiency is a relevant determinant of a country's competitiveness – and in this respect, there still exist big differences among Latin American countries. Unlike most other relevant variables, port efficiency can be influenced by public policies. Maritime Economics & Logistics (2003) 5, 199–218. doi:10.1057/palgrave.mel.9100073

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (89)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/journal/v5/n2/pdf/9100073a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/journal/v5/n2/full/9100073a.html Link to full text HTML (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:5:y:2003:i:2:p:199-218

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

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 ().