Title: Governance and performance evaluation of the Portuguese seaports in the European context

Authors: Rui Cunha Marques, Manuel Luz Carvalho

Addresses: Centre of Urban and Regional Systems (CESUR), Instituto Superior Tecnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Avenida Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal. ' Centre of Urban and Regional Systems (CESUR), Instituto Superior Tecnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Avenida Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract: A global reform of the Portuguese seaport sector favoured the involvement of the private sector in the provision of port services and the improving of its performance. The regulatory model, the institutional setting and the operations features of the Portuguese seaport sector are briefly analysed and compared with those of other countries. This research estimates the efficiency of the Portuguese seaports by a robust non parametric method. The sample analysed included 41 seaports from 11 European countries. We concluded that the inefficiency of Portuguese seaports is meaningful and the GDP of the hinterland is an important factor for the seaport efficiency.

Keywords: seaports; port governance; performance evaluation; data envelopment analysis; DEA; bootstrap; Portugal; port services; seaport efficiency.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEM.2009.024840

International Journal of Services, Economics and Management, 2009 Vol.1 No.4, pp.340 - 357

Published online: 01 May 2009 *

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