Regions and material flows: investigating the regional branching and industry relatedness of port traffics in a global perspective

Abstract

This article proposes a quantitative analysis of the interdependencies between port specialization and regional specialization across the world. A global database is elaborated, covering about 360 port regions located in both developed and developing countries. One main goal is to verify how interdependent port traffic and regional characteristics are, in a context of increasingly flexible commodity and value chains. Despite the aggregated dimension of available data and the heterogeneity of local situations, the main results confirm the affinity between the primary sector and raw materials traffic, and the tertiary sector and general cargo traffic, while the industrial sector offers mixed evidence. This allows confirmation of a number of fundamental questions raised by both economic geography and regional science about transport and local development. The global typology of port regions provided in this article underlines certain regularities in their spatial distribution and discusses the policy implications of particular cases.

Port infrastructures and trade: Empirical evidence from Brazil

“…Within this framework, it is important to stress that over 80% of international trade involves maritime services (Unctad, 2016), giving to port infrastructure a crucial role to improve international connectivity and propensity to international trade for a given region (e.g. Guerrero et al, 2016, Ducruet andNotteboom, 2012;Ducruet and Itoh, 2016). Moreover, as also underlined by Rodrigue et al (2016), transport systems are normally represented by networks in which nodal infrastructure (such as ports) plays a key role, by promoting accessibility and fostering local competitiveness for the hosting regions.…”

The Changing Interplay Between European Cities and Intermodal Transport Networks (1970s–2010s)

“…Such evidence has been confirmed through a number of models and case studies about the physical and functional separation between ports and cities in the last decades (Bird, 1963;Hoyle, 1989;Murphey, 1989;Norcliffe et al, 1996). Other studies have demonstrated the temporal and geographic variability of such a phenomenon (Brocard, 1988;Ducruet and Lee, 2006;Lee et al, 2008;Ducruet and Itoh, 2016), echoing earlier critiques of the central place theory ignoring the port function, using the concept of gateway (Burghardt, 1970;Bird, 1973). In Europe, port cities were found to be demographically larger (Vleugels, 1969) and economically richer (Lever, 1995) than other cities.…”

Density economies and transport geography: Evidence from the container shipping industry

“…696 & 713-716)). Moreover, Ducruet and Itoh (2016) find port throughput specialization largely reflects local economic specialization. A structural change in manufacturing production and trade pattern is thus expected.…”