Dissertation•
Political economy of port competition : institutional analyses of Rotterdam, Southern California and Dubai
01 Jan 2007-
About: The article was published on 2007-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 37 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Port (computer networking) & Competition (economics).
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the relationship between the institutions and governance processes behind spatial projects currently taking place in the interface of four European port cities: Marseille, Barcelona, Hamburg, and Rotterdam.
129 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a synthesis of main findings from the OECD Port-Cities Programme, created in 2010 in order to assess the impact of ports on their cities and provide policy recommendations to increase the positive impacts of ports in their cities.
Abstract: This report provides a synthesis of main findings from the OECD Port-Cities Programme, created in 2010 in order to assess the impact of ports on their cities and provide policy recommendations to increase the positive impacts of ports on their cities.
127 citations
Cites background from "Political economy of port competiti..."
...A port-city is a complex territorial, social and industrial organisation, whose developmental trajectory is determined by a number of actors – ranging from local to national scales of government, and including private and public actors – each of which has a different set of interests and motivations (Jacobs 2007)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, path dependence in seaport governance has been studied and a process of institutional stretching takes place when port authorities see a need to develop new capabilities and activities, gradually leading to a formalised governance reform but without breaking out of the existing path of development.
113 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify contemporary geographic theories which help us understand the often increasingly urban attachment of core economic activities despite globalization and explore how these theories may apply to port studies, highlighting both how they have been used by maritime scholars to this point and also why further development and application are warranted.
Abstract: Despite ongoing transformations in the maritime transportation industry and the rise of global supply chain systems, most of the world's important container ports remain urban. Ports continue to occupy urban spaces, are embedded in localized knowledge systems, draw on urban labour markets and infrastructure and are subject to local politics and policy concerns. We identify contemporary geographic theories which help us understand the often increasingly urban attachment of core economic activities despite globalization. We explore how these theories may apply to port studies, highlighting both how they have been used by maritime scholars to this point and also why further development and application are warranted. We argue that a central concern of these geographic theories is the articulation of place- and sector-specific processes operating at a variety of spatial scales. This is in contrast to most maritime studies which continue to be dominated by perspectives which emphasize the global logic of the tr...
111 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the degree to which particular port actors are capable of inserting themselves into global supply chains and hypothesize that the strategic supply chain choices of a port authority or operator are conditioned by the territorialized institutional framework in which the dominant actors operate.
Abstract: Recent academic debates about port competition have centered on the strategic responses of port authorities, operators, managers and owners to the emergence of global supply chains The competitive performance of a port authority or operator, given the rise of the integrated logistics sector, depends increasingly on its strategic relationship to these supply chains and rather less on traditional port competition factors such as hinterland size and physical infrastructure However, there are few empirical studies investigating the degree to which particular port actors are capable of inserting themselves into global supply chains In this article we ask what factors condition the supply chain strategies of port actors We hypothesize that the strategic supply chain choices of a port authority or operator are conditioned by the territorialized institutional framework in which the dominant actors in a port operate We apply these insights through a case study of the transformation of Dubai Port Authority, and the rise of Dubai Ports World (DPW)
108 citations
Cites background or methods from "Political economy of port competiti..."
...As such, the SOP acts to create strategic opportunities by which global operating firms may become territorially embedded within a port and, in so doing, can capture the value created in particular geographic location....
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...However, actors operating in supply chains at the same time become territorially embedded in a particular port’s SOP, for example, by acquiring a dedicated terminal concession....
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...At the same time the SOP also acts to create strategic opportunities for locally based and port dependent actors to attach to, and become embedded within, particular GPNs....
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...When we apply the SOP to ports, the focus is thus concerned with the interaction between organizations and institutions involved in the provision of a specific port’s land, infrastructure and superstructure (e.g. cranes, storage facilities, gates, fork-trucks)....
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...In order to investigate the territorial embeddedness of key or dominant actors in ports and their supply chain strategies, we make use of the structure of provision approach (SOP) as applied to ports (cf. Jacobs 2007b)....
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References
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Book•
01 Jan 1990TL;DR: Douglass C. North as discussed by the authors developed an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time.
Abstract: Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues that the kinds of skills and knowledge fostered by the structure of an economy will shape the direction of change and gradually alter the institutional framework. He then explains how institutional development may lead to a path-dependent pattern of development. In the final part of the book, North explains the implications of this analysis for economic theory and economic history. He indicates how institutional analysis must be incorporated into neo-classical theory and explores the potential for the construction of a dynamic theory of long-term economic change. Douglass C. North is Director of the Center of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a past president of the Economic History Association and Western Economics Association and a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written over sixty articles for a variety of journals and is the author of The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (CUP, 1973, with R.P. Thomas) and Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). Professor North is included in Great Economists Since Keynes edited by M. Blaug (CUP, 1988 paperback ed.)
27,080 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time.
Abstract: Examines the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time. Institutions are separate from organizations, which are assemblages of people directed to strategically operating within institutional constraints. Institutions affect the economy by influencing, together with technology, transaction and production costs. They do this by reducing uncertainty in human interaction, albeit not always efficiently. Entrepreneurs accomplish incremental changes in institutions by perceiving opportunities to do better through altering the institutional framework of political and economic organizations. Importantly, the ability to perceive these opportunities depends on both the completeness of information and the mental constructs used to process that information. Thus, institutions and entrepreneurs stand in a symbiotic relationship where each gives feedback to the other. Neoclassical economics suggests that inefficient institutions ought to be rapidly replaced. This symbiotic relationship helps explain why this theoretical consequence is often not observed: while this relationship allows growth, it also allows inefficient institutions to persist. The author identifies changes in relative prices and prevailing ideas as the source of institutional alterations. Transaction costs, however, may keep relative price changes from being fully exploited. Transaction costs are influenced by institutions and institutional development is accordingly path-dependent. (CAR)
26,011 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the extent to which economic action is embedded in structures of social relations, in modern industrial society, is examined, and it is argued that reformist economists who attempt to bring social structure back in do so in the "oversocialized" way criticized by Dennis Wrong.
Abstract: How behavior and institutions are affected by social relations is one of the classic questions of social theory. This paper concerns the extent to which economic action is embedded in structures of social relations, in modern industrial society. Although the usual neoclasical accounts provide an "undersocialized" or atomized-actor explanation of such action, reformist economists who attempt to bring social structure back in do so in the "oversocialized" way criticized by Dennis Wrong. Under-and oversocialized accounts are paradoxically similar in their neglect of ongoing structures of social relations, and a sophisticated account of economic action must consider its embeddedness in such structures. The argument in illustrated by a critique of Oliver Williamson's "markets and hierarchies" research program.
25,601 citations
"Political economy of port competiti..." refers background in this paper
...Proponents of this model (cf. Granovetter 1985) see institutional change as arising out of collective processes of interpretation, and emphasis is put on the ways in which existing institutions structure and circumscribe the range of institutional change and creation....
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Book•
01 Jan 1990
TL;DR: The Need for a New Paradigm as discussed by the authors is the need for a new paradigm for the competitive advantage of companies in global industries, as well as the dynamics of national competitive advantage.
Abstract: The Need for a New Paradigm - PART I: FOUNDATIONS - The Competitive Advantage of Firms in Global Industries - Determinants of National Competitive Advantage - The Dynamics of National Advantage - PART II: INDUSTRIES - Four Studies in National Competitive Advantage - National Competitive Advantage in Services - PART III: NATIONS - Patterns of National Competitive Advantage: The Early Postwar Winners - Emerging Nations in the 1970s and 1980s - Shifting National Advantage - The Competitive Development of National Economies - PART IV: IMPLICATIONS - Company Strategy - Government Policy - National Agendas - Epilogue - Appendices - References
22,660 citations
"Political economy of port competiti..." refers background in this paper
...This argument is associated with the work on clusters (Porter, 1990), industrial districts (Piore & Sabel, 1984) and agglomeration-economies (Krugman, 1995)....
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TL;DR: The authors show that the Musgrave-Samuelson analysis, which is valid for federal expenditures, need not apply to local expenditures, and restate the assumptions made by Musgrave and Samuelson and the central problems with which they deal.
Abstract: NE of the most important recent developments in the area of "applied economic theory" has been the work of Musgrave and Samuelson in public finance theory.2 The two writers agree on what is probably the major point under investigation, namely, that no "market type" solution exists to determine the level of expenditures on public goods. Seemingly, we are faced with the problem of having a rather large portion of our national income allocated in a "non-optimal" way when compared with the private sector. This discussion will show that the Musgrave-Samuelson analysis, which is valid for federal expenditures, need not apply to local expenditures. The plan of the discussion is first to restate the assumptions made by Musgrave and Samuelson and the central problems with which they deal. After looking at a key difference between the federal versus local cases, I shall present a simple model. This model yields a solution for the level of expenditures for local public goods which reflects the preferences of the population more adequately than they can be reflected at the national level. The assumptions of the model will then be relaxed to see what implications are involved. Finally, policy considerations will be discussed.
12,105 citations
"Political economy of port competiti..." refers background in this paper
...In such a situation, citizens and businesses can ‘vote with their feet’ (Tiebout, 1956) in the search for the most favorable package of welfare services and taxes within the metropolitan area....
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