IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v80y2004is1ps43-s52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Distributing the Gains from Waterfront Productivity Improvements

Author

Listed:
  • DENIS LAWRENCE
  • ANYA RICHARDS

Abstract

Despite significant increases in waterfront productivity in recent years, waterfront users have complained that reductions in charges have been insufficient. This paper applies an indexing method that allows us to construct ‘what‐if’ scenarios where the contribution of productivity, price changes and changes in firm size to stevedore profitability can clearly be seen. We then calculate the distribution of the benefits of productivity improvements between customers, labour and shareholders. We find that the direct purchasers of stevedoring services have reaped gains from waterfront reform over the past five years, receiving around 67 per cent of the available ‘productivity dividend’ in the form of lower real stevedoring prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Denis Lawrence & Anya Richards, 2004. "Distributing the Gains from Waterfront Productivity Improvements," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 80(s1), pages 43-52, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:80:y:2004:i:s1:p:s43-s52
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4932.2004.00183.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2004.00183.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2004.00183.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1973. "Transcendental Logarithmic Production Frontiers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 55(1), pages 28-45, February.
    2. Diewert, W. E., 1973. "Functional forms for profit and transformation functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 284-316, June.
    3. John Salerian, 2003. "Analysing the Performance of Firms Using a Decomposable Ideal Index Number to Link Profit, Prices and Productivity," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 36(2), pages 143-155, June.
    4. Diewart, W Erwin & Morrison, Catherine J, 1986. "Adjusting Output and Productivity Indexes for Changes in the Terms of Trade," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(383), pages 659-679, September.
    5. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R & Diewert, W Erwin, 1982. "Multilateral Comparisons of Output, Input, and Productivity Using Superlative Index Numbers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(365), pages 73-86, March.
    6. Kevin Fox & Ulrich Kohli, 1998. "GDP growth, terms-of-trade effects, and total factor productivity," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 87-110.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Antonio Estache & Emili Grifell-Tatjé, 2010. "Assessing the impact of Mali's water privatization across stakeholders," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2010-037, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. E. Grifell-Tatjé & C. Lovell, 2008. "Productivity at the post: its drivers and its distribution," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 133-158, April.
    3. Bichou, Khalid, 2006. "Chapter 24 Review of Port Performance Approaches and a Supply Chain Framework to Port Performance Benchmarking," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 567-598, January.
    4. Denis A. Lawrence & Gert Van Der Westhuizen, 2008. "Measuring The Allocation Of Eskom'S Productivity Dividend1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(3), pages 537-547, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fox, Kevin J. & Grafton, R. Quentin & Kirkley, James & Squires, Dale, 2003. "Property rights in a fishery: regulatory change and firm performance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 156-177, July.
    2. W. Erwin Diewert & Kevin J. Fox, 2017. "Decomposing Value Added Growth into Explanatory Factors," Discussion Papers 2017-02, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    3. Inklaar, Robert & Diewert, W. Erwin, 2016. "Measuring industry productivity and cross-country convergence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(2), pages 426-433.
    4. W. Erwin Diewert, 2022. "Duality in Production," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Robert G. Chambers & Subal C. Kumbhakar (ed.), Handbook of Production Economics, chapter 3, pages 57-168, Springer.
    5. Denis Lawrence & W. Diewert & Kevin Fox, 2006. "The contributions of productivity, price changes and firm size to profitability," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 1-13, August.
    6. Hulten, Charles R., 2010. "Growth Accounting," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 987-1031, Elsevier.
    7. Chihiro Shimizu & Erwin Diewert & Koji Nomura, 2024. "Estimating Flexible Functional Forms using Macroeconomic Data," Working Papers e206, Tokyo Center for Economic Research.
    8. Diewert, Erwin & Fox, Kevin J., 2019. "Productivity Indexes and National Statistics: Theory, Methods and Challenges," Microeconomics.ca working papers erwin_diewert-2019-8, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 25 Apr 2019.
    9. W. Erwin Diewert, 1995. "Price and Volume Measures in the System of National Accounts," NBER Working Papers 5103, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Barnett, William A. & Erwin Diewert, W. & Zellner, Arnold, 2011. "Introduction to measurement with theory," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 161(1), pages 1-5, March.
    11. Mosheim, Roberto & Lovell, C.A. Knox, 2006. "Economic Efficiency, Structure and Scale Economies in the U.S. Dairy Sector," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21440, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Aoki, Shuhei, 2012. "A simple accounting framework for the effect of resource misallocation on aggregate productivity," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 473-494.
    13. Aguiar, Victor H. & Kashaev, Nail & Allen, Roy, 2023. "Prices, profits, proxies, and production," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 666-693.
    14. Nicholas Outlon, 2019. "GDP is a measure of output, not welfare. Or, HOS meets the SNA," Discussion Papers 1906, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    15. Diewert, W. Erwin, 2014. "Decompositions of profitability change using cost functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 183(1), pages 58-66.
    16. Charles R. Hulten, 2000. "Total Factor Productivity: A Short Biography," NBER Working Papers 7471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Nicholas Oulton, 2021. "The effect of changes in the terms of trade on GDP and welfare: a Divisia approach to the SNA," Discussion Papers 2126, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    18. W. Diewert, 2011. "Measuring productivity in the public sector: some conceptual problems," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 177-191, October.
    19. McKay, Lloyd & Lawrence, Denis & Vlastuin, Chris, 1982. "Production Flexibility and Technical Change in Australia's Wheat-Sheep Zone," Review of Marketing and Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 50(01), pages 1-18, April.
    20. Hailu, Atakelty & Hailu, Atakelty, 2003. "Pollution abatement and productivity performance of regional Canadian pulp and paper industries," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 5-25.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:80:y:2004:i:s1:p:s43-s52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.