Airports and seaports have experienced significant governance reforms over the last few decades. As major airports are argued to have market power, they are subject to some form of economic regulation. Airports used to be subject to rate-of-return regulation. More recently, there has been a reform in airport economic regulation and they are increasingly being subject to incentive based price-cap regulation and light-handed regulation or monitoring. In the policy debate, it is of interest to analyse whether price-cap regulation and light-handed regulation of airports are superior to rate-of-return regulation. In the case of seaports, there has been a reform in their governance model and a large number of seaports now follow the landlord seaport model. In a landlord seaport, the port authority is responsible for monitoring and coordination while specialized private terminal operators are responsible for cargo handling and seaport operations. Policy debates have focused on whether the landlord seaport model leads to superior performance in comparison to the service seaport model where most responsibilities are handled by the port authority or the public sector. Airports and seaports are increasingly being regulated by independent regulators because they are not susceptible to regulatory capture. Policy debates have also focused on whether independent regulators lead to a superior performance in comparison to dependent regulators.
The first part of this thesis focuses on airport regulation and its impact on efficiency. We conduct a literature review of the theoretical and empirical literature on airport regulation and efficiency. We find that dual-till price-cap regulation and light-handed regulation are preferable to rate-of-return regulation from an efficiency perspective. We also find that while light-handed regulation leads to efficient airports, it does not necessarily constrain airport charges and hence does not lead to the cheapest airports. We find that independent regulators enhance airport performance. With respect to slot allocation, we find that slot allocation is superior to queuing in terms of capacity, delay and congestion management. However, we find that slot allocation based on economic principles is superior to administrative slot allocation. In this part of the thesis, we also identify gaps in the empirical literature which require further analysis.
The next part of the thesis focuses on the impact of governance on the technical efficiency of major Indian seaports. This chapter uses a non-oriented slacks based measure of technical efficiency in the first stage and a fixed effects regression in the second stage in order to analyse the impact of governance on the technical efficiency of the major Indian seaports. From the first stage, we find that most of the seaports have a scope for improvement in technical efficiency. From the second stage analysis, we find that specialization has the highest positive impact on technical efficiency. We hence propose that the major Indian seaports have to specialize because they can benefit from economies of scale. With respect to ownership, we find that external stakeholder participation has a significant positive impact on technical efficiency. This gives evidence that the landlord seaport model is conducive to enhanced technical efficiency. With respect to competition, we find that competition from the non-major Indian seaports from within the state and along the coast has a significant negative impact on the technical efficiency of the major Indian seaports. We argue that this is because of the tiered governance framework, which results in excess capacity at the major Indian seaports. We propose that the seaports should have a common governance, institutional and regulatory framework, which can enhance their performance. With respect to regulation, we find that rate-of-return regulation by an independent regulator is superior to internal regulation by the port authority in terms of technical efficiency. We argue that this is because the independent regulator is not susceptible to regulatory capture unlike the port authorities.
The last part of the thesis focuses on the impact of governance on the technical efficiency of container ports from the Far East and Asian region. This chapter uses stochastic frontier analysis in order to estimate a production frontier. It makes use of a single step procedure which can be used to estimate the production frontier as well as to estimate the impact of the governance-related contextual variables on the technical efficiency of these container ports. We estimate the individual as well as the combined effects of the governance-related contextual variables on the technical efficiency of these container ports. From the individual effects model, we find that majority private container ports are significantly more technically efficient in comparison to minority private container ports. This gives evidence that the landlord seaport model is conducive to enhanced technical efficiency. With respect to competition, from the individual effects model, we find that both hinterland and transshipment competition enhance the technical efficiency of these container ports. With respect to regulation, from the individual effects model, we find that regulation by an independent regulator is the most conducive to enhanced technical efficiency. In the combined effects model, a majority private container port which faces high hinterland competition and has no economic regulation is taken as the base case. Most of the other combinations of the contextual variables result in a significantly lower technical efficiency in comparison to the base case. However, a majority private container port which faces low hinterland competition and either has no economic regulation or is regulated by an independent regulator is significantly more technically efficient in comparison to the base case. Our results further show that when a port is majority private and faces low hinterland competition, regulation by an independent regulator results in a significantly higher technical efficiency in comparison to having no economic regulation. We argue that this is caused because there is excessive entry and hence majority private container ports which face low hinterland competition and are regulated by an independent regulator are the most technically efficient. We propose that along with the setting up of independent regulators for container ports, policymakers should also ensure that entry is at an optimal level, which can result in competition that is effective and technical efficiency enhancing.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:84768 |
| Date | 19 April 2023 |
| Creators | Kumar, Shravana |
| Contributors | Hirte, Georg, Niemeier, Hans-Martin, Adler, Nicole, Technische Universität Dresden |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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