The Influence Mechanisms Of Competition And Cooperation Strategies On Port's Operation And Risk Managements

With the developments of global economic integration and international trade liberalization, ports as the hinge between sea-transportation and land-carriage develop rapidly. However, due to the recession and overcapacity of maritime industry, competition among regional container hub ports has intensified with more ports involved in. Thus, ports improve infrastructures to enhance their competitiveness. However, port's competitiveness include not only the operation efficiency, but also its capabilities to withstand risks. To meet the increasingly complex economic environment, maritime logistics become more complicated than ever before, which makes it to be more vulnerable to unconventional disaster.On the basis of the previous research, three main parts were included in this paper. First, this paper develops a two-stage oligopoly model, which is applied to the ports (Shanghai, Ningbo and Busan port) located in Northeast Asia to provide policy implications. Second, we discuss the risk management from the risk prevention perspective, focusing on the competition and cooperation strategies between two ports with different relationships (substitute and complement). Third, the resilience theory was applied to the port's risk management, concerning both risk prevention and responding. It is the supplementation and perfection of the ports'risk management theory. The main conclusions are as follows:First, we compare the optimal results of three strategies (independent, alliance and monopoly) and find that the alliance of Shanghai and Ningbo ports is not only the best strategy in terms of social welfare but also in the interest of coalition members. In addition, although the best payoff for ports is achieved under the monopoly strategy, social welfare is reduced. It means there is a misalignment between social and ports' incentives under monopoly strategy. Furthermore, the number of shipping lines will not affect the ports'preference of forming coalition.Second, the main results of risk management from the perspective of disaster prevention are as follows:when two ports are complementary, they will increase their disaster prevention investment under cooperation scenario than that in the case of independent strategy. It implies that government should encourage the cooperation between two complementary ports. Although the cooperation strategy decreases the total cost of risk of two ports, it does not satisfy the individual rationality as the different efficiency of disaster prevention and disaster losses between two ports. Thus, sharing the cost between ports is a necessary approach to promote cooperation.Third, the main conclusions based on the port's resilience optimization are as follows:Firstly, when two ports adopt the independent strategies, the optimal response investments after the disaster are only relevant to the port's direct losses caused by the disaster and the efficiency of disaster relief. Secondly, as two ports are complements, ports will increase their response investment under the cooperation strategy than the case of independent. While two ports are substitutes, the response investments decrease when ports adopt the cooperation strategy. Thirdly, the results show that the investments of prevention and response are substitutes, which means that if ports increase their relief investment after disaster, the prevention investment will decrease.