Port efficiency and its influencing factors in the context of Pilot Free Trade Zones

Under the context of Pilot Free Trade Zones (PFTZs), ports are confronted with new opportunities to realize highquality development. This paper first applies the Super-SBM model to evaluate and analyze the overall technical efficiency (OTE), pure technical efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE) of the ports in six typical China?s PFTZs from 2010 to 2017 to reveal their development status. By further constructing an OTE-cargo throughput matrix and comparing OTE with and without considering undesirable outputs in 2017, the intensive and green development degree of ports are analyzed. Second, Tobit regression model is employed to identify the influencing factors from both external and internal aspects including the PFTZ factor together with economic and operational indicators. The main findings are as follows. (i) The ports? OTE in the six PFTZs is stable and high, with PTE on the rise and SE somewhat differentiated. Except for the mean of SE, sequences of the port efficiency in terms of standard deviations and other means roughly accords with the time sequence of PFTZs? establishment. (ii) There?s heterogeneity in both intensive and green development degree of the ports, and Shanghai Port is the benchmark with the best performance. (iii) The PFTZ factor exerts a positive role in promoting port efficiency, while other significant influencing factors namely economic status, openness and population of hinterland, ownership structure, human capital, as well as operation scale of ports are also detected. Finally, suggestions on high-quality development and efficiency improvement of ports in the PFTZs are proposed.