Excess capacity, economic efficiency and technical change in a public-owned port system: An application to the infrastructure services of spanish ports

Abstract

In this paper we estimate both a technical efficiency measure and the evolution of allocative efficiency in the infrastructure services of Spanish ports during the period 1986-2005. To achieve this aim, we estimate a system of equations consisting of a multioutput translog input distance function and cost shares equations. The results show that Spanish ports do not minimize their costs. Additionally, from 1992, we observe a process of under-utilization of capital relative to labour, coinciding with a decentralized process of the organizations that own and control the land and activities at Spanish ports. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.