This dissertation is composed of three chapters regarding international trade and environmental regulation. The first chapter focuses on the relationship between port ownership and the port R\&D investment. I investigate whether a larger degree of private involvement in the port sector makes for a higher level of welfare, as well as an improvement in port performance. I establish the stage games to analyze the reciprocal international trade. The theoretical findings indicate that the endowment of population plays an essential role in choosing the optimal port ownership. In the second chapter, I investigate the effect of port pollution regulation on port ownership. I incorporate the regulation tax on emissions from port cargo handling into the international duopoly trade model. The results of the stage games suggest the same ownership of the ports in both countries. I also extend the categories of port structures to include the transfer of port ownership to the other country. The policy implication is to have the small country own both ports, which is opposite to the port governance in reality. In the third chapter, I explore the equilibrium port ownership structures without other policy issues or regulation on the port sector being considered. The influence of country size per se suggests that a small country should privatize its port in the context of a privatized port in the large country. For a large country, it is better to choose a type of ownership different from the small country's. In addition, it is the country whose population is greater than a third of the scale in the other country that should own both ports.

The thesis is focused on factors influencing port customers in their choice of the most convenient port. Port customer is primarily freight forwarder but ship operators and multimodal transport operators are also involved in decision making process. Principles of port functioning system reflected in port ownership and port governance with connection to individual subject in port organizational structure are introduced in the theoretical part of the thesis. The following part describes volumes of transported TEU in relation between specific port and Czech and Slovak Republic. The main goal of this thesis is to identify and analyze the key endogenous and exogenous factors which were affecting performance of selected ports. Factors with highest influence on freight forwarder choice are described in detail. Emphasis is placed on the Port of Hamburg because of its ongoing highest performance on the market with highest TEU volumes and also on the Port of Koper because of its growing performance profile.