Optimal concession contracts for landlord port authorities with different pursuing goals

This paper investigates how landlord port authorities should offer concession contracts to their terminal operators under two different goals, by building a two-stage game for each goal. If maximizing the weighted sum of fee revenues and throughout benefits is port authorities’ goal, then the optimal concession contract can be any of the two-part tariff, the unit-fee, and the fixed-fee contracts. Accordingly, our special cases include previous works assuming that port authorities maximize either fee revenues or throughput benefits. By contrast, if maximizing the social welfare is the goal, then we find that subsidizing terminal operators, instead of charging them, is port authorities’ best choice. This result is not yet discovered in the literature.     

Impacts of trade liberalization on Chinese economy with Belt and Road initiative

China has been continuously implementing the open-door policy for past 15 years ever since it joined the World Trade Organization, which escalated international trade and demand for shipping. Compared with the other major importing countries in the world, China’s importing tariff is relatively low. Under the Belt and Road initiatives, more Free Trade Agreements to be concluded and more Free Trade Zones to be established, it is expected that the effective import tariff rate may continue to decrease in the future. This study analyses the impact of further reduction in Chinese import tariff rate on major economic indicators using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and based on the Chinese macro-economic data of 2012. The model results show that, with a balanced international payment, such a reduction can increase GDP, resident consumption, both imports and exports, and reduce GDP price, trade surplus, and government revenue. The results ease the concern that further import tariff reduction may harm the domestic production. Rather, it points out that there are still rooms to improve national economy and increase the consumer utility by trade liberation.     

公路旅客运输高峰定价研究

在客运高峰期。运输对象对运能的需求急剧上升,运输部门要投入比平时更多的运输能力,导致其它运输时间段运能的闲置。造成旅客运输企业资源的浪费．增加了运输企业的营运成本。以边际成本定价理论为依据,对公路旅客运输高峰期运价进行研究,并将研究成果应用到四川省公路旅客运输高峰期运价制定实际中。     

典型航运公司应收运费核算系统的设计

作为业务复杂度高的集装箱运输,正确收取应收运费对航运公司而言有着重要的意义.基于某典型航运公司的业务特点,在分析现有应收运费核算模式局限性的基础上,通过研究运价协议构成和应收核算模式,实现了电子运价本、运价核算的自动化和差错更正流程,并建立了应收运费核算系统.系统成功实施后,显著提高了应收运费的准确性,保障了航运公司的应得利益.     

Influential factors in the design of port infrastructure tariffs

ABSTRACT

The main aim of this article is to examine the factors influential to the practical process of port infrastructure tariff design. The analysis is based on the survey data of 67 seaports representing the Australasian, East Asian, European, North American and South American regions. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was first carried out to identify the factors influential to the selection of the infrastructure tariff design model. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm the relationship between the variables. The findings showed that demand, knowledge about pricing theories, the dynamics of port and shipping sectors (including competition and ship size), pricing objectives and port cost consideration are influential factors in infrastructure tariff design. Most ports use a mix of pricing approaches including price discrimination, cost-based pricing and market-based pricing. Ports are aware of the basic pricing approaches but have limited knowledge of their application. Based on the results of analysis, policy implications for port management in designing port infrastructure tariffs, limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.