A Benchmark Analysis of Italian Seaports Using Data Envelopment Analysis

This paper uses data envelopment analysis to evaluate the performance of Italian seaports from 2002 to 2003, combining operational and financial variables. The paper evaluates how close the Italian seaports are to the frontier of best practices. Moreover, the paper also tests for the role played by size, containerisation and labour in the efficiency of the seaports analysed. The general conclusion is that the Italians seaports examined display relatively high efficiency. However, there are also some inefficient seaports in the sample analysed. Management implications are subsequently drawn. © 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. All rights reserved.