The development of dry ports in Brazil is the theme of a new port study by PortEconomics co-director Thanos Pallis, in collaboration with Adolf Ng, associate member of PortEconomics, and Flavio Padilha.
Dry ports are associated with enhanced efficiency. Relieving seaport congestion without (significant) capacity expansion, dry ports are essential elements in the competitive position of seaports, as they acted to facilitate access to (overlapping) hinterlands. However, those focusing on how institutions could strengthen (or dissipate) the bureaucratic and logistical roles of dry ports had remained scarce, especially on developing economies.
Investigating the recent development of dry ports in four Brazilian states, Adolf, Thanos and Flavio investigate how institutional framework affects the bureaucratic and logistical roles of dry ports in emerging economies. Their study posits that the Brazilian institutional framework in place has acted as causal factors in strengthening the bureaucratic roles of dry ports while at the same time dissipating their logistical roles. Through establishing the causal relation between these forces, the paper provides important insight on the impacts of institutions on transportation and regional development in different geographical regions.
The study is published in a special issue of the scholarly journal Journal of Transport Geography on the theme of “Institutions and the Transformation of Transport Nodes” that has been edited by Adolf and Thanos in collaboration with Prof. Peter Hall (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver CA).
You might download the authors’ version of the study @ PortEconomics.
Read more about the special issue: Institutions and the Transformation of Transport Nodes
