Spatial effects of container ports on production of the leather, bag and shoe industry in Korea

Container port operations are widely regarded as being beneficial to regional economies, particularly in aggregated terms. The present paper examines this common knowledge in the specific case of the leather, bag and shoe industry in Korea. The authors use two panel datasets of the industry, one dataset of 16 regions and the other dataset of enduring establishments from 1991 to 2011. In our analysis with panel data of the regions, the authors find that an increase of container throughput in ports affects production of the industry positively during the examined period. When dividing the examined period into two periods, the authors observe the negative effects during the period before 2003 and primarily in the groups of regions without large ports. The panel data model of enduring establishments presents a negative coefficient of port throughput on production. The contradictory results may be caused by the characteristics of the two different panels.