Corruption and firm behavior: Evidence from African ports

This paper investigates how corruption affects firm behavior. Using an original and unusually rich dataset on bribe payments at ports matched to firm-level data, we observe how firms adapt to different types of corruption by adjusting their transport strategies. Our results suggest that firms respond to the price effects of corruption, organizing production in a way that increases or decreases demand for the public service.     

The use of management control mechanisms by public organizations with a network coordination role: A case study in the port industry

Our paper addresses two gaps in the literature on management control mechanisms in the context of inter-organizational relationships. Firstly, several studies have focused on one-to-one relationships, but few take a network perspective which analyses the deployment of management control mechanisms in the context of networks involving multiple interactions between organizations. Secondly, even fewer studies have specifically tackled the use of these mechanisms in the context of mixed-type networks, where a public organization acts as the network coordinator responsible for key governance activities. This is the position in Ports, which are collectives of several related organizations and in which one organization – the “port authority” – assumes the role of network coordinator. In this paper we report the results of a case study, the aims of which were: to identify the management control mechanisms deployed, or relied upon, by the Portuguese Port Authority in the Port of Aveiro in the exercise of its coordinating role; and to discern – on the basis of theoretical reasoning and empirical evidence – the factors explaining the nature and use of these mechanisms.Several conclusions emerged from the study. A general conclusion was that our prior literature-based theorization is generally consistent with the case observations. That is, in mixed-type networks, the nature and use of management control mechanisms by the public organization acting as a network coordinator seems to be shaped by its assessment of motivations to cooperate and of the contribution to network performance of the various organizations involved in the network. Other more specific conclusions are encapsulated in a “coordination framework”, which relates those assessments to specific features of the management control mechanisms. Crucially, our results provide insights into the roles of public organizations acting as network coordinators in the context of mixed-type networks, and, in general, on the nature of the numerous such public organizations in today's economy and society.     

我国主要沿海港口的动态效率评价

本文利用数据包络分析法(DEA)对我国50家主要沿海港口1999—2002年的经营效率进行总体分析与评价,并利用Malmquist生产率指数对这些沿海港口的效率变动进行分析与评价。研究结果表明,我国沿海港口存在严重的投入拥挤与资源浪费现象;同时,各区域的沿海港口在总体效率、纯技术效率与规模效率方面存在地区差异,沿海港口的纯技术效率在下降。这些结果表明,要从根本上提高港口经营效率,一方面,必须整合港口资源,防止盲目扩大港口的基础设施;另一方面,通过港口与其他系统协调发展来消除影响港口效率提高的因素。     

The structure of the Philadelphia trading community on the transition from colony to state

This article explores the extent and nature of retail change in the eighteenth century. In focusing on a single region, it places retailing in its spatial, economic and social context; by adopting different scales of analysis – shop, town and region – it reveals much about the spatiality of retailing. The study shows that retail change had penetrated all aspects of retailing and all parts of the regional urban hierarchy by the end of the eighteenth century. However, any retailing revolution was a patchy and conditional process: the pace of change varied, and the gap between large and small towns apparently widened in the early nineteenth century.     

江苏如皋港现代物流发展战略探析

2010年伊始,我国提出了调整经济结构,转变经济增长方式的宏观经济指导思想,江苏如皋港本着国家党政这一重大经济思想,着手八年再造一个如皋经济总量目标建设,但在港区重点项目建设中,如何实现港区转型升级就成为首要问题,文中针对江苏如皋港的转型升级问题展开分析,并提出了一些向现代物流转型的实质性建议。     

Public-private partnerships and scale efficiency in Brazilian ports: Evidence from two-stage DEA analysis

This paper assesses the impacts of public-private partnerships on major Brazilian public ports. It is proposed that these kinds of arrangements with private terminal operators could help achieving higher levels of scale efficiency by enhancing coordination processes, providing more adequate information technologies, and higher connectivity with other transportation modes. Methodology relies on factor extraction of inputs/outputs as a first step to compute DEA efficiency estimates, followed by truncated bootstrapped regression analysis to test different contextual variables. Results indicate a strong positive impact of public-private partnerships on port scale efficiency, corroborating their impacts in relation to the most productive scale size.     

GAME THEORY AND PORT ECONOMICS: A SURVEY OF RECENT RESEARCH

The last decade has seen a significant upsurge of studies seeking to examine the impacts of port agents’ strategic decisions. The outcome has been a wide range of results and conclusions. The aim of this work is to provide a review of this recent research in the port industry that uses strategic interaction approaches from industrial organization and game theory. The paper concentrates on five topics: ownership, relationship between ports and their hinterlands, port authorities and port operators’ relations, capacity investment decisions, and port specialization. We present the objectives, methodologies and results of the papers reviewed, with special emphasis on how models are developed. The results are not always consistent between the works analyzed. On the one hand, this could be due to the complexity of the port industry and the high number of agents that intervene. Researchers need to simplify reality to build their models by imposing restrictive assumptions. On the other hand, results could be very sensitive to the techniques used or to the differences on the port environment of the countries of study. However, some conclusions can be extracted and they present a good starting point to develop more sophisticated models. Finally, we also propose avenues for future research.     

The waves of containerization: shifts in global maritime transportation

This paper provides evidence of the cyclic behavior of containerization through an analysis of the phases of a Kondratieff wave (K-wave) of global container ports development. The container, like any technical innovation, has a functional (within transport chains) and geographical diffusion potential where a phase of maturity is eventually reached. Evidence from the global container port system suggests five main successive waves of containerization with a shift of the momentum from advanced economies to developing economies, but also within specific regions. These waves are illustrative of major macroeconomic, technological and sometimes political shifts within the global economy. They do not explain the causes, but simply the consequences in the distribution in container traffic and growth (or decline). Yet, they provide strong evidence that containerization has a cyclic behavior and that inflection points are eventually reached, marking the end of the diffusion of containerization in a specific port or port range. Future expectations about the growth of containerization thus need to be assessed within an economic cycle perspective instead of the rather linear perspectives.     

长江内支线口岸开展贸易便利化测评的实践和思考

根据长江内支线口岸实际,参考世界海关组织货物放行时间测算指南和世界银行跨境贸易营商环境评价方法,连续两年对长江某内支线口岸开展贸易便利化测评实证研究,并与世界银行的评价结果进行对比分析,提出在长江内支线口岸开展贸易便利化测评的对策建议。     

以港兴贸加快枣庄沿运物流业发展

近几年来,内河城市纷纷加大了对现代物流的研究,把港口物流建设放在十分突出的地位。我国加入WTO和枣庄段运河标准的提高,对今后枣庄沿运港口物流业的发展既存在着机遇,又面临着挑战。枣庄要抓住入世机遇,实现以港口为龙头的枣庄物流发展,必须引进国际、国内物流集团,加快基础设施建设,加大港口的扩建,创新体制、机制,尽快成为在内河航运有较大影响的区域性物流集散地。