Abstract
This paper presents a theoretical investigation on trade and port policies, at a substantial level of abstraction. Applying an import-competing trade model, we examine the effect of port ownership on port charges, firm profits, and social welfare. We show that, depending on transport costs, the home country has different preferences in choosing port ownership under free trade. However, the foreign country always prefers to privatize its port rather than keep it public under free trade. Moreover, under a trade tariff regime, we find that the home country chooses port privatization, regardless of transport costs, while the foreign country always prefers public ownership to port privatization. Thus, a comparison of free trade and the trade tariff regime reveals the following: (i) the welfare of the home country choosing port privatization is always greater under a trade tariff regime and (ii) the welfare of the foreign country may decrease or increase, depending on the transport costs and the degree of imperfect substitutability, which in turn depend on the ownership structure of ports. From the viewpoint of port’s profit, a privatized port is never allowed to run a deficit, whereas a public port is. This result shows that a privatized port focuses more on profit than on trade volume, while the opposite is true in the case of a public port. It is hoped that our line of thinking, admittedly abstract, or even bold if taken at face value, could provide some useful input to the complex decision-making processes involved in real life port policy formulation.
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Acknowledgements
A previous version of this paper was presented in the meeting of SSK-Networking seminar at the National Research Foundation of Korea. The authors are grateful to Ki-Dong Lee and seminar participants for their valuable comments. We would also like to give our special thanks to the editor-in-chief and the anonymous referees for giving us a second opportunity to submit a revision. We really appreciate the referees’ comments and we definitely believe that their comments have helped us in improving the paper. The usual disclaimer applies.
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Choi, K., Lim, S. Tariff protection and port privatization: An import-competing approach. Marit Econ Logist 20, 228–252 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41278-016-0004-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41278-016-0004-1