Specialisation, diversification, size and technical efficiency in ports: an empirical analysis using frontier techniques

This paper explores the relationship between output specialisation, diversification, size and technical efficiency in ports. Using a sample of Spanish port authorities observed over the period 1993-2012, we calculate a normalised Herfindahl-Hirschman index of overall specialisation and indices of relative specialisation in the individual cargoes. An output distance frontier is estimated using non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis techniques to calculate technical efficiency. These efficiency scores are then used to test that relationship with a bootstrapped truncated regression. We find that both overall and relative output specialisation have a positive influence on technical efficiency. Moreover, the positive effects of specialisation on technical efficiency is reinforced for larger ports, which are in a better position to take advantage of economies of scale and which can also attract different types of cargo (enjoying also economies of scope) and therefore protect themselves from adverse demand conditions. Our results underline the trade-off for smaller port authorities between efficiency gains from specialisation and their vulnerability to market conditions for their main output

The final frontier : the integration of banking and commerce. Part 1, the likely outcome of eliminating the barrier

Exploring the potential effects of removing the legal barriers between banks and commercial firms, this article surveys economic theory as well as experience in other developed countries and in U.S. nonbank conglomerates.Banks and banking ; Banking law

The Final Frontier: The Integration of Banking and Commerce. Part 1: The Likely Outcome of Eliminating the Barrier

The policy debate on whether to strengthen or to remove the legal barriers between banking and commerce has paid little attention to what the practical effects of removing the barriers would be. To help answer this question, this article, the first part of a two-part study, provides an overview of the potential gains of integrating banking and commerce. Economic theory, the authors note, suggests that joint corporate ownership of banks and commercial firms has several potential benefits, including economies of scale and scope, increased internal capital markets, and diversification. Commercial firms could also enjoy a significant reduction in funding costs if affiliation with a bank extended the federal safety net for banks to cover the commercial firms' liabilities. But some benefits are already available without common ownership. Moreover, common ownership may also result in some disadvantages, such as significant diseconomies of scale and scope. Actual experience provides better insight than theory can about the relative magnitudes of the benefits and costs of cross-industry combinations. U.S. experience with limited openings between banking and nonbank activities suggests that the most common combinations were banks with nonbank financial firms, relationships that were authorized by a 1999 reform act. Foreign experience and U.S. conglomerates of nonbank firms in different industries fail to provide compelling evidence for large-scale combinations of banking and commercial firms

The Final Frontier: The Integration of Banking and Commerce. Part 2: Risk and Return Using Efficient Portfolio Analysis

In the first part (in the previous issue of Economic Review) of this two-part study, the authors identified a number of possible benefits from combining banking and commerce, including portfolio diversification, the creation of internal capital markets, and economies of scale and scope. This second part of the study analyzes the one source of possible gainsportfolio diversificationthat can be estimated with existing data. Using methodologies from previous studies, the authors combine ten financial and nonfinancial industries into hypothetical portfolios using industry-level profitability data calculated from corporate tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service between 1994 and 2004. The analysis demonstrates that pairwise combinations of banks with construction firms or with retail firms would have produced substantially higher returns on equity with less risk during the sample period. Efficient portfolios combining banks with several other industries showed even higher levels of returns relative to risk, although banks were not necessarily a dominant part of some combinations. These findings suggest that portfolio diversification could be an important benefit from combining banks with some types of nonbank firms. The authors stress that bank management contemplating diversification into the commercial sector must be selective about which specific industries they choose, while corporate management interested in moving into banking might need to settle for somewhat lower returns to achieve a substantial reduction in risk

Summary of Supersonic Jet and Rocket Noise

This paper summarizes a two-part special session, “Supersonic Jet and Rocket Noise,” which was held during the 174th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans, Louisiana. The sessions were cosponsored by the Noise and Physical Acoustics Technical Committees and consisted of talks by government, academic, and industry researchers from institutions in the United States, Japan, France, and India. The sessions described analytical, computational, and experimental approaches to both fundamental and applied problems on model and full-scale jets and rocket exhaust plumes

Characterization of High-Power Rocket and Jet Noise Using Near-Field Acoustical Holography

Structural fatigue, hearing damage, and community disturbances are all consequences of rocket and jet noise, especially as they become more powerful. Noise-reduction schemes require accurate characterization of the noise sources within rocket plumes and jets. Nearfield acoustical holography (NAH) measurements were made to visualize the sound field in the jet exhaust region of an F-22 Raptor. This is one of the largest-scale applications of NAH since its development in the 1980s. A scan-based holographic measurement was made using a 90-microphone array with 15 cm regular grid spacing, for four engine power settings. The array was scanned through 93 measurement positions, along three different planes in a region near 7 m from the jet centerline and 23 m downstream. In addition, 50 fixed reference microphones were placed along the ground 11.6 m from the jet centerline, spanning 30.8 m. The reference microphones have been used to perform virtual coherence on the measurement planes. Statistically-optimized NAH (SONAH) has been used to backpropagate the sound field to the source region for low frequencies, and to identify jet noise characteristics. Ground reflection interference and other non-ideal measurement conditions must be dealt with. Details relating to jet coherence lengths and their relation to reference microphone requirements will be discussed. Preliminary results of this ongoing work will be presented. [Work supported by Air Force SBIR.