Container port productivity comparison cross country

Abstract

Container ports need improve their productivity to compete with the competitors in the increasingly competitive global container industry. This research focuses on measuring productivity of the world's major container ports by utilizing the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) on a Cobb-Douglas production function. The largest and most recent dataset conducted by this research covers the operators, as estimated units, from the world's 76 container ports from 1997 to 2004. This research explores that most operators operated their terminal inefficiently in the study period, and the efficiency of the operators ranges from less than 10% to more than 80% of their full efficiencies. This thesis also analyzed the continental effect and the group effect on the difference of container port/terminal operators' productivity.