ANALYSIS OF THE BENEFITS OF INTRA-PORT COMPETITION

Intra-port competition is widely regarded as beneficial, for the competitiveness of ports, for local and national economies and for consumers and exporting industries. The aim of the paper is to analyse the benefits resulting from the presence of intra-port competition. Even though this issue has been addressed before, a thorough and complete overview of the effects of intra-port competition, enabling conditions for intra-port competition and policies in case of lacking intra-port competition are absent. The paper presents first a short overview of previous studies dealing with intra-port competition. Second, it discusses the two main arguments underlying the benefits of intra-port competition. In this context, attention is given to the relation between intra-port and inter-port competition. Third, the paper examines the conditions under which these arguments are valid and intra-port competition can be introduced. Possible policy responses to limited or absent intra-port competition are discussed in this section as well. Fourth, the need to introduce effects of intra-port competition in port modelling is briefly. Finally, the paper presents empirical evidence of the effects of intra-port competition.