Commodity variety and seaport performance

Commodity variety and seaport performance

[SHS:GEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography

commodity

diversity

Europe

port

specialization

traffic

Seaports are key locations within value chains and production networks. Port policies of national and local governments seek higher rents through strategies of specialisation 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 existing literature mostly focused on global networks and economic players

Ducruet, César

Koster, Hans

Van Der Beek, Daniel

Regional Studies

ISSN:0034-3404

2010

ENG

article in peer-reviewed journal

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00458596

DOI: 10.1080/00343400903167904

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/45/85/96/PDF/Regional_Studies.pdf