Tourism Management and Sustainable Development | 2021
The Efficiency of Croatian Seaport Authorities
Abstract
The seaport authorities play an important role in the sustainable development of seaports and seaport communities. In order to affect positively their socio-economic development, the seaport authorities strive to be efficient. This research focuses on evaluating the efficiency of 19 seaport authorities in Croatia using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The research uses the output-oriented constant returns to scale (CCR) and output-oriented variable returns to scale (BCC) DEA models to estimate overall technical efficiency (OTE), pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE). The research identifies two key facts, the current level of efficiency of analysed seaport authorities and the efficient seaport authorities. It also provides the benchmarks for inefficient seaport authorities together with the recommendations to increase their efficiency. Thus, the contribution of this paper to the current body of empirical literature is two-fold. It presents one of the rare empirical evaluations of efficiency of Croatian seaport authorities using the DEA approach, with the identification of best performers among analysed seaport authorities. Finally, the paper provides the evidence that there is no difference in the efficiency of Croatian seaport authorities under different levels of government.