Publication: A Multioutput Cost Function for Port Terminals : Some Guidelines for Regulation
Loading...
Published
2003-10
ISSN
Date
2014-04-25
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Cargo handling in ports is a multioutput activity, as freight can arrive in many forms such as containers, bulk, rolling stock, or noncontainerized general cargo. In this paper Tovar, Jara-D�, and Trujillo analyze the operation of port terminals through the estimation of a multioutput cost model that uses monthly data on three firms located at the Las Palmas port in Spain. This permits the calculation of product-specific marginal costs, economies of scale (general and by firm), and economies of scope, which are key tools to help the regulators in their task.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Tovar, Beatriz; Jara-Díaz, Sergio; Trujillo, Lourdes. 2003. A Multioutput Cost Function for Port Terminals : Some Guidelines for Regulation. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 3151. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18047 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication South Africa’s Fragmented Cities: The Unequal Burden of Labor Market Frictions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-08)Using high-resolution administrative, census, and satellite data, this paper shows that South African cities are characterized by spatial mismatches between where people live and where jobs are located, relative to 20 global peers. Areas within 5 kilometers of commercial centers have 9,300 fewer residents per square kilometer than expected, which is 60 percent below the global median. Poor, dense neighborhoods are most affected. In Johannesburg, a 10-percentile increase in distance from the nearest business hub corresponds to a 3.7-percentile drop in asset wealth (a proxy of household wellbeing) and 4.9-percentile drop in employment. In Cape Town, the declines are 4.0 and 3.7 percentiles, respectively. Employment is 87 percent lower in the poorest decile than the richest in Johannesburg and 61 percent lower in Cape Town. These findings suggest that South Africa’s spatial organization of people and economic activity constrains agglomeration and reinforces inequality. This methodology provides a scalable and standardized data-driven framework to analyze spatial accessibility and agglomeration frictions in complex, data-constrained urban systems.Publication The Evolution of Local Participatory Democracy in Nepal(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-05)Nepal is, according to its constitution, among the world’s most decentralized countries, with a long and complex tradition of local-level public participation. This paper traces the evolution of Nepal’s modern participatory institutions, examining the extent to which they are “induced” by external interventions versus being “organically” rooted in indigenous practices. The paper identifies three broad phases: an initial focus on participation in project implementation; a subsequent phase that expanded citizen engagement; and a third phase of citizen empowerment, culminating in the 2015 federal constitution, which granted unprecedented local autonomy. The analysis yields five key findings. First, over the past 50 years, successive reforms have progressively expanded opportunities for citizens to influence local decision-making. Second, these reforms have integrated traditional participatory mechanisms into formal institutions of local government. Third, although central-level initiatives exist, most participatory platforms continue to operate at the local level. Fourth, the federal constitution has created a new landscape of local democracy, embedding autonomy and accountability. Fifth, although they are still valued in many ethnic and territorial communities, traditional participatory practices are gradually disappearing. The paper concludes by offering policy recommendations to help donor agencies and governments strengthen Nepal’s democratic trajectory. It argues that effective interventions should build on Nepal’s deep participatory traditions while recognizing the constitutional reality of far-reaching local autonomy.Publication Institutional Capacity for Policy Implementation: An Analytical Framework(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)State capacity is an important prerequisite for policy implementation, yet at the country level it is difficult to measure, assess, and reform. This paper proposes a focus on institutional capacity: the ability of public institutions to implement the specific policy mandates for which they are responsible. Based on a review of existing literature, the paper defines the different dimensions that compose institutional capacity and groups them into two cross-cutting categories: organizational dimensions (personnel, financial resources, information systems, and management practices) and governance dimensions (transparency, independence, and accountability). The paper proposes measures for organizational and governance dimensions using existing data, shows intra-institutional variation of these measures within countries, and discusses how new data could be collected for better measurement of these concepts. Finally, the paper illustrates how the framework can be used to diagnose the sources of common problems related to weak policy implementation.Publication Closing the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Overcoming Challenges in Law and Practice for Female Entrepreneurs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)Despite significant strides toward gender equality, women around the world continue to encounter systemic obstacles that hinder their entrepreneurial success. This paper systematically reviews the literature on the barriers female entrepreneurs face and the solutions proposed to overcome these challenges. It discusses institutional factors, financial factors, human capital factors, and social and cultural factors. The literature overview is complemented by a series of stylized facts that illustrate how overcoming some of these existing barriers is correlated with improved women’s entrepreneurship and female labor force participation, drawing on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law database as well as the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys. The findings underscore the need for creating an enabling environment where women can thrive as entrepreneurs.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Reforms and Infrastructure Efficiency in Spain’s Container Ports(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-02)This paper quantifies the evolution of technical efficiency in port infrastructure service provision in the major Spanish port authorities involved in container traffic. The paper also analyzes the extent to which port reforms that took place in the 1990's had an impact on the efficiency of the Spanish container ports. Because of the multi-output nature of port activities, we have estimated a distance function, which is a novel methodology in the study of the port industry. The results show that the reforms resulted in significant improvements in technological change, but that technical efficiency has in fact changed little on average. However, there is a significant movement of the efficiency within ports over time as a result of these reforms.Publication Production and Cost Functions and their Application to the Port Sector : A Literature Survey(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-08)Seaports provide multiple services to ships, cargo, and passengers. These services can be performed by a combination of public and private initiatives. Usually, the role of public sector institutions is to regulate and supervise private firms. In performing that task public sector institutions require in-depth knowledge of firms' cost structure. This paper offers a review of the literature about ports' cost structure and of its implications for regulation. The paper argues that the operation of port terminals should be analyzed by means of multiproduct theory. This approach allows the calculation of several cost indicators (economies of scale, scope, and so forth) which are key tools to help regulators.Publication Study on Regulation of Private Operators in the Port of Djibouti(Washington, DC, 2012-06)Within a partnership framework with the Emirate of Dubai, the government of Djibouti has developed, during the last decade, an outstanding port and logistics hub with few precedents in other African countries. The objective of the present study is to strengthen the competitiveness of the ports of Djibouti (old port of Djibouti and new port of Doraleh) and ensure their medium-term and long-term development by designing a modern and efficient regulation system for private port operators, and specifically addressing issues related to the quality of service and pricing, in addition to institutional related issues. The port of Djibouti's competitiveness can be measured by its capacity to counter competition from other ports through the quality of its infrastructures and services, performance and port costs. Real or potential competition facing the port of Djibouti concerns non-captive traffic and its two components, transit and transshipment traffic. The port of Djibouti's natural competitors for Ethiopia's transit traffic are the ports of Berbera, Assab, Massawa, Port Soudan and Mombasa due to landlocked Ethiopia's extensive terrestrial borders with Somalia, Eritrea, Soudan, and Kenya. But this competition remains potential and very marginal due to the unfavorable geopolitical context and/or the inferior quality of infrastructures of these ports. Conditions of competition regarding transit traffic could nevertheless evolve as it is in Ethiopia's natural interest to diversify its sea-access routes so as not to depend on a single port that may be tempted to abuse of its dominant position with non-competitive tariffs. Contrary to existing competition on container transshipment traffic, potential competition on transit traffic will have a more considerable impact on all Djibouti port operators in terms of tonnage handled and revenue loss, as it will affect all types of traffic (conventional and containerized, liquid and dry bulk) and because transit charges are considerably more lucrative than transshipment charges. Port activities that need to be regulated to reinforce the port of Djibouti's competitiveness are the commercial services for cargos and vessels provided by port operators.Publication Freight Transport for Development Toolkit(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009)The estimate of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is that more than 80 percent or close to 8 million tons in 2007, of world freight is transported by sea. Most, if not all, freight transport moves from the producer to the consumer through logistic processes thereby passing a number of nodal points. As for waterborne transport, sea and river ports and terminals form these nodal points where freight is transferred from one mode to another. Chapter one provides data on world maritime transport and explains the different types of cargo that pass which are carried by the world merchant fleet and the cargoes they carry. It also is explained that the former general cargo type of vessels have evolved into vessel designs that have specifically been designed for different types of cargoes. Chapter two provides an extensive overview of the development of the container in terms of what containers are, how dedicated container vessels have developed as well as the impact of containers on logistic processes, including hinterland connections. Chapter three provides an overview of the world port in terms of numbers and classifies the largest ports in the world in terms of total cargoes, containers and dry bulk. Chapter four presents an overview of the indicators used in ports. Chapter five describes how ports around the world are owned and managed. First the major characteristics and functions of ports are described and possible ownership structures are explained. The chapter six not only describes the aspect of emissions, but also describes other forms of pollution sources of the sector, as these are noise, light, dust and soil and water pollution. As is explained in chapter seven, port work has gradually changed from pure physical work to processing control using dedicated and complicated equipment and automated systems. Similarly, the work of seafarers has changed. Chapter eight provides tools as to how cities can cope with this issue; in particular how former port areas can be and have been re-integrated in the city. Chapter nine presents a number of examples comparing rates that were charged in 2008 with those in the same period in 2009. Finally, chapter ten provides a comparison between the World Bank's transport business strategy paper 2008-2012 and the issues presented in this overview of ports and waterborne transport.Publication Bosnia and Herzegovina - The Road to Europe : Annex 5. Inland Waterways Transport - Realizing the Potential(Washington, DC, 2010-05)This report highlights deficiencies and indicates priorities for a prospective national transport strategy and action plan for further consideration by key stakeholders. The overall objective should be the development of a transport system, and an institutional framework, that facilitates rather than constrains, economic development in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A strong transport system contributes to economic growth by reducing the economic distance to markets by expanding opportunities for trade, by improving the competitiveness of national locations for production and distribution, and by facilitating mobility for a country s citizens; while minimizing the social and environmental costs of the transport sector. The report concludes by recommending actions that aim to improve the institutional framework, improve the sustainability of the transport sector, facilitate broad based economic growth, and mitigate the social and environmental detriments associated with transport. Specific policy recommendations are presented to accomplish these conclusions.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication The Role of Social Ties in Factor Allocation(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2019-10)We investigate whether social structure helps or hinders factor allocation using unusually rich data from the Gambia. Evidence indicates that land available for cultivation is allocated unequally across households; and that factor transfers are more common between neighbors, co-ethnics, and kinship-related households. Does this lead to the conclusion that land inequality is due to flows of land between households being impeded by social divisions? To answer this question, a novel methodology that approaches exhaustive data on dyadic flows from an aggregate point of view is introduced. Land transfers lead to a more equal distribution of land and to more comparable factor ratios across households in general. But equalizing transfers of land are not more likely within ethnic or kinship groups. In conclusion, ethnic and kinship divisions do not hinder land and labor transfers in a way that contributes to aggregate factor inequality. Labor transfers do not equilibrate factor ratios across households. But it cannot be ruled out that they serve a beneficial role, for example, to deal with unanticipated health shocks.Publication MIGA Annual Report 2013 : Insuring Investments, Ensuring Opportunities(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-11)In fiscal year 2013, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) issued 2.8 billion dollars in investment guarantees for projects in our developing member countries. At 1.5 billion dollars, representing more than half of new business, the bulk of MIGA's guarantees issued support investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sixty-nine percent of new business volume this year was in complex projects in infrastructure and extractive industries, a strategic priority for the Agency. This year, 82 percent of MIGA's new volume fell into one or more of strategic priority areas: investments in the world's poorest countries, "South-South" investments, investments in conflict-affected countries, and investments in complex projects. MIGA also established the conflict-affected and fragile economies facility to further deepen support to this priority area.Publication Impact of Migration on Economic and Social Development : A Review of Evidence and Emerging Issues(2011-02-01)This paper provides a review of the literature on the development impact of migration and remittances on origin countries and on destination countries in the South. International migration is an ever-growing phenomenon that has important development implications for both sending and receiving countries. For a sending country, migration and the resulting remittances lead to increased incomes and poverty reduction, and improved health and educational outcomes, and promote economic development. Yet these gains might come at substantial social costs to the migrants and their families. Since many developing countries are also large recipients of international migrants, they face challenges of integration of immigrants, job competition between migrant and native workers, and fiscal costs associated with provision of social services to the migrants. This paper also summarizes incipient discussions on the impacts of migration on climate change, democratic values, demographics, national identity, and security. In conclusion, the paper highlights a few policy recommendations calling for better integration of migration in development policies in the South and the North, improving data collection on migration and remittance flows, leveraging remittances for improving access to finance of recipient households and countries, improving recruitment mechanisms, and facilitating international labor mobility through safe and legal channels.Publication Economy Profile of Djibouti(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-10-31)Sixteenth in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2019 covers 11 areas of business regulation. Ten of these areas - starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency - are included in the ease of doing business score and ease of doing business ranking. Doing Business also measures features of labor market regulation, which is not included in these two measures. Doing Business provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level. This economy profile presents indicators for Djibouti; for 2019 Djibouti ranks 99.