Evaluating the effects of the latest change in Spanish port legislation: Another “turn of the screw” in port reform?

• Successive legislative reforms have influenced the Spanish ports since the 1990s.
• Port traffic generated is mainly influenced by port charges and also other attributes.
• The impact of the 2010 reform on traffic is stronger than the legislation of 2003.
• Political conflicts and a decline in tariff freedom in the 2003 Law might explain it.

This article examines the determinants of traffic generated by Spain's port authorities, using data from 2003 to 2012. The interest of the study lies on examining the impact of recent legislative measures that have implied an increasing liberalization of port charges. We find that port charges influence the amount of traffic that a port is able to generate, while traffic is also affected by geographical attributes, economic wealth, the extent of industrial activity and population. Our main result is that we find evidence that the legislation of 2003 did not have a significant impact on traffic while the impact of the legislation of 2010 seems to have been stronger. Political conflicts associated to a lack of consensus on the approbation of the 2003 legislation plus a clear decline in tariff freedom wiped out the inter-port competition slightly promoted by earlier laws, versus the 2010 reform featured by a strong political agreement and a flexible port charges framework.