Volume 3, Issue 2

Liner shipping has been characterized by collusive agreements, called shipping conferences, since its founding in the mid-nineteenth century. This article surveys the competing models of shipping conferences, including monopolizing cartels and destructive competition models, and reviews a variety of their practices to see how much light they can shed on the profitability and efficiency of conferences.

The paper discusses port pricing structures that enhance ship efficiency. Traditionally, ports use public infrastructure pricing, which does not take differences in waiting cost into considerations. We present two alternatives, a two part priority pricing scheme and port slot auctions, as alternative scheduling and pricing schemes that enhance ship efficiency.

The question of whether exclusive licensing of the right to provide harbour towage services in ports can provide a superior outcome to open competition has been among the questions that have recently preoccupied Australian policymakers. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the arguments for and against the introduction of exclusive licensing of harbour towage by way of a review of the more general literature on franchise bidding. The paper argues that the general policy trend in Australia towards greater acceptance of exclusive licensing arrangements for harbour towage in Australia is misguided because the costs of open entry tend to be overestimated while the practical difficulties of exclusive licensing tend to be underestimated.

The recent worldwide trend towards devolution in the port industry has spawned considerable variety in the types of governance structures now in place around the world. This paper discusses the range of devolution alternatives adopted in the global ports sector, as identified by the World Bank and academic researchers. It then examines the Canadian model more closely as it attempts to follow a more novel path, that of the not-for-profit organization.

There have been various analyses of the efficiency of container port (or terminal) production using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) based on cross-sectional data. When time is not considered, the efficiency results derived using this approach can be biased. In order to overcome this problem, this paper applies DEA windows analysis, utilising panel data, to a sample of the world’s major container ports in order to deduce their relative efficiency. The results suggest that estimates of container port efficiency fluctuate over time. The paper concludes that existing programming methods for estimating efficiency are inadequate in capturing the long-term increased efficiency and competitiveness that accrue from significant investments.

This paper investigates the wage differentials of intermodal transportation carriers and ports under carrier economic regulation and deregulation. The estimation results suggest that the union wages of truck drivers, rail engineers and port dockworkers were comparable in the regulation period; in the deregulation period the union wages of truck drivers and rail engineers declined relative to those of dockworkers. The wage differential estimates indicate negative union hourly wage gaps for truck drivers and rail engineers of 22.7% and 6.9%, respectively, versus dockworkers. These results reflect the increase (decrease) in the relative bargaining power of dockworkers (truck drivers and rail engineers) in the deregulation period.