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The Hanjin shipping bankruptcy: how big of an impact?
By Jean-Paul Rodrigue For many years, the shipping industry has been in a situation of overcapacity, which was depressing rates and impairing the profitability of shipping lines. To make matters worse, almost every major shipping line was ordering larger containerships, caught in a vicious circle of trying to boost profitability with economies of scale. Capacity was growing faster than demand. In such as setting, there were discussion and rumors within the industry about which major shipping company would fold first in an environment...
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IPOs in ports: the determinants of the long-term aftermarket performance
Financial markets, traditionally, have been a secondary source of funds for the port industry, compared with alternative financial resources such as retained earnings, governmental support and corporate bank loans (Stopford, 2009). Nonetheless, the amount of money required for upgrading extant infrastructures, developing mega-projects and fuelling private terminal operators’ overseas expansion made the traditional sources of capital inadequate. In this perspective, recent empirical evidence suggests that equity capital markets will extend...
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Three irrelevant reasons why Maersk & co should not invest in more ultra large container ships
By Jan Hoffman Chief, Trade Facilitation Section at UNCTAD (Linkedin) Containerships have never been bigger than today, container freight rates have never been lower, and never has so much container carrying capacity been idle. Not a trilemma, but three sides of the same coin. And after several years of calmness at the M&A front, we have new mergers among liner companies. In March 2016, the idle container ship fleet stands at 1.6 million TEU, and a shipper may pay less than 200 US$ to have his twenty foot container...
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Tackling uncertainty in green pricing of port infrastructure
Seaports are large networked infrastructures, which have considerable spatial impacts. Such infrastructures must be prepared to accommodate future developments within a context of stakeholder pressure. Similar to other large industrial operations generating substantial externalities, transport industries are large polluters. In 2012, it was noted that international shipping accounted for nearly 1,000 million tonnes of CO2, CH4 and N2O, an equivalent of 2,2% of global green house gas emissions. These levels are even expected to increase...
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Box dynamics: “leaders”, “followers” and transmitting mechanisms
A port study co-authored by PortEconomics member Thomas Vitsounis received the KLU Young Researcher Best Paper Award of the Annual Conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists held in Hamburg, Germany 23-26 August 2016. The study models spillover effects across container sectors (commodities) over time. In more detail, the study conceptualizes the container port throughput as a function of different evolutions of the various sectors that make up the aggregate container output. Arguing, the container cycle may be...
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PortEconomics members @ IAME2016 Conference
The annual conference of the International Association of PortΕconomics – IAME 2016, that was held 23-26 August in Hamburg, Germany provided to the PortEconomics team the opportunity to present the port research that they conducted over the last year. In total, PortEconomics members presented 16 different port or port related studies that progressed over the course of the last months, shaping research developments in the emerging research field of port economics, policy and management, as well as in port related studies. Over the...
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Italy reframes its port governance
By Francesco Parola After 22 years from the introduction of the landlord system (1994 Port Reform), the Italian Government approved a new reform law that is going to further reshape the organization of the whole port architecture at national level. The current 24 Port Authorities (PAs), together with other 33 minor ports, are going to be substituted by 15 Port System Authorities. In line with the rationale of the Law, PSAs inherit the duties and the power of traditional PAs, with a broader geographical scope. Existing PAs, indeed,...
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Port Performance Research Network (PPRN) meets in Hamburg
The 14th annual meeting of the Port Performance Research Network (PPRN) takes place today, Tuesday, 23rd August, in Hamburg, Germany with PortEconomics members meeting together with fellow maritime economists interested in port research at the eve of the 2016 Annual Conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME). The Port Performance Research Network (PPRN) is an informal network of maritime economists interested in issues of port policy. It was established at the IAME 2001 meeting in Hong Kong to undertake...
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