| dc.description.abstract | This study seeks to investigate the empirical basis for the hypothesis, arising from the
economics literature, that public enterprises are inherently less efficient than private
enterprises, with reference to British ports which provide a comprehensive
"laboratory" of mixed—ownership enterprises.
The relative productive efficiency of public ports vis—a—vis private ports is
evaluated in terms of efficiency frontiers of the industry at a fairly high degree of
rigour. By applying the techniques of efficiency measurement the various ways that a
British port producer might depart from overall productive efficiency were
systematically explored. These include: production on the interior of the production
possibilities set; production in the congested region of the boundary of the production
possibilities set; and deviation from the scale that arises from the long—run
competitive equilibrium. As well as static productive performance, productive
performance relative to dynamic production frontiers is also the subject of
investigation.
Both mathematical programming techniques and econometric techniques are
employed. To fulfil the tasks in the empirical analysis, the econometric approach has
been enhanced in two ways. First, a less restrictive structure of production technology
is specified in estimating efficiency frontiers in order to define parametric measures in
a more meaningful way. Second, Solow's (1957) measure of productivity growth is
reconsidered in a context of stochastic frontier functions, which enables us to
translate efficiency gains over time into a movement towards frontiers and a
movement of the frontiers.
As far as British ports are concerned we found no evidence for believing the
inefficiency associated with public ownership to be unavoidable. The results cast
serious doubt on the transformation in productive performance brought about by the
port privatisation programme. | en_US |
