A STUDY OF THE EFFICIENCY OF SPANISH PORT AUTHORITIES USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

TLDR

This paper evaluates the relative efficiency of all Spanish Port Authorities from 1993 to 1997 using Data Envelopment Analysis. Ports were classified into three complexity groups and a database of 26 ports with five yearly observations each was constructed to compare efficiency within and across groups over time. High‑complexity ports improved toward the efficiency frontier, medium‑complexity ports grew only modestly, and low‑complexity ports declined in overall efficiency.

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study of the relative efficiency of all Spanish Port Authorities during the 1993-1997 period, using the Data Envelopment Analysis technique. The ports are divided into 3 groups according to their complexity. A database was also built with the information coming from the 26 ports using 5 observations for each port; this permitted the comparison among ports in each group as well as their evolution during the period. Results obtained show a different evolution of every group in terms of relative efficiency. Thus, the ports of high complexity offered higher comparative efficiency levels, having gone closer to the frontier over time. The same cannot be said of the medium complexity group where the growth of the efficiency levels during the 5 years was smaller. Ports of low complexity showed a negative evolution in global efficiency levels.