Commodity Variety and Seaport Performance

Abstract

Ducruet C., Koster H. R. A. and Van der Beek D. J. Commodity variety and seaport performance, Regional Studies. Seaports are key locations within value chains and production networks. Port policies of national and local governments seek higher rents through strategies of specialization or diversification. Elaborating on longstanding research about urban and regional development, this paper proposes an empirical investigation of the interplay between traffic variety and port performance. The analysis of traffic data per commodity for 330 European ports highlights the influence of multiple factors such as location, function, and local context, together with the specificity of some commodities regarding port evolution. The demonstrated importance of territorial factors provides a good complement to the existing literature mostly focused on global networks and economic players. [image omitted] Ducruet C., Koster H. R. A. et Van der Beek D. J. L'eventail des produits et la performance des ports maritimes, Regional Studies. Les ports maritimes sont des emplacements cle au sein des chaines de valeur et des reseaux de production. Les politiques des administrations nationale et locale envers les ports visent l'obtention des loyers plus eleves par moyen des strategies de specialisation et de diversification. Tout en developpant les recherches de longue date sur l'amenagement du territoire, cet article propose une etude empirique de l'interaction entre l'eventail du trafic et la performance des ports. L'analyse des donnees sur le trafic suivant le produit pour 330 ports europeens souligne l'influence de plusieurs facteurs, tels l'emplacement, la fonction et le contexte local, conjointement avec la specificite de certains produits quant au developpement des ports. L'importance deja evoquee de certains facteurs territoriaux complete bien la documentation actuelle qui porte largement sur les reseaux mondialises et les agents economiques. Produit Diversite Europe Port Specialisation Trafic Ducruet C., Koster H. R. A. und Van der Beek D. J. Gutervarietat und Leistung von Meereshafen, Regional Studies. Meereshafen sind wichtige Standorte innerhalb von Wertschopfungsketten und Produktionsnetzwerken. Die Regierungen auf nationaler und lokaler Ebene versuchen durch Strategien der Spezialisierung oder Diversifizierung ihre Pachteinnahmen aus Hafen zu steigern. Aufbauend auf langjahrigen Forschungen uber Stadt- und Regionalentwicklung wird in diesem Beitrag eine empirische Untersuchung der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Verkehrsvarietat und Hafenleistung vorgeschlagen. Bei einer Analyse der nach Gutern aufgeschlusselten Verkehrsdaten von 330 europaischen Hafen wird der Einfluss verschiedener Faktoren wie Standort, Funktion und lokaler Kontext deutlich, begleitet von der spezifischen Funktion einiger Guter fur die Entwicklung des Hafens. Die nachgewiesene Bedeutung territorialer Faktoren bietet eine gute Erganzung zur vorhandenen Literatur, die sich grosstenteils auf globale Netzwerke und wirtschaftliche Akteure konzentriert. Guter Diversif...

Network diversity and maritime flows

“…This also relates to the fact that many large ports, notably those handling containers, benefit from dynamic urbanization externalities provided by their urban environment (Hall and Jacobs, 2012), allowing them to continue to dominate shipping networks and to resist external shocks and fluctuations of all kinds (De Langen, 1998;Todd, 2000;Lemarchand and Joly, 2009). Port traffic diversity is for a large part a function of the economic size and diversity of the city-region, as empirically verified in different contexts (Carter, 1962;Kuby and Reid, 1992;Ducruet et al, 2010). In contrast, general cargo is the least coupled commodity type with only 42% of shared links.…”

“…The very few attempts providing general answers to such questions have relied on classical methods of data analysis based on the distribution of port tonnage by port and by commodity type. Based on urban and regional studies that discuss the advantages of agglomeration, specialization, and diversification for cities, Ducruet et al (2010) confirmed that ports handling larger traffic volumes are usually more diversified than ports handling smaller traffic volumes. Small and medium-sized ports can also be diversified just like large ports can be highly specialized, but this depends on a wide range of factors such as location, industry and regional linkages, etc.…”

The worldwide maritime network of container shipping: spatial structure and regional dynamics

“…Early work provided spatial models (Ogundana 1970;Rimmer 1967;Taaffe et al 1963) suggesting a trend towards an increasing level of cargo concentration in port systems. The nature and performance of traffics is often explained by the situation of ports within land-based transport and urban systems (Ducruet et al 2010c). However, most scholars have continued focusing primarily on hinterlands, due to the development of intermodalism and logistic chains around ports (Robinson 2002;van Klink 1998) and the higher cost of land transport versus sea transport (Notteboom 2004).…”

Ports and the local embedding of commodity flows

“…The size and diversity of urban economies adjacent to ports influences to some degree the size and diversity of port traffics in the United States (Carter ) and in Europe (Ducruet et al. ), while smaller ports are often more specialized and bound to local industries by handling intermediate inputs (Kuby and Reid ). The relatively good coincidence between the value of goods passing through seaports and their travelled distance inland was demonstrated by Debrie and Guerrero () based on the French case.…”