Evolution of global container operator efficiency: A DEA approach

Improving port efficiency can therefore have a significant impact on the whole maritime economy. Recognizing this fact, many governments have consistently prioritized the ports as a central element of infrastructure to promote regional economic growth. This paper treats container terminal operators as the Decision Making Unit, which represents a divergence from previous port efficiency studies. We compile a panel data of 141 global container terminal operators from 1997 to 2005 to study the efficiency of container operator production. We use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compute efficiency scores. We add country and port characteristics into our model except output/input. We examine the contribution of productivity to operator output based on the long time series. The efficiencies of different operators in same port are showed to investigate the core sources of productivity growth.