The impact of port throughput on local employment: Evidence from a panel of European regions

In this paper we study the impact of port activities on local employment by analyzing a sample of about 560 regions located in ten West European countries and observed over the period 2000–2006. The biggest European ports of OECD countries belong to our sample, which includes 116 ports. The empirical analysis is based on the estimation of a set of employment equations with the GMM-System estimator of Blundell and Bond (1998) that allows us to take into account persistence effects in employment, regional unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity, and endogeneity of port activity.Our main findings can be summarized as follows: first, regional employment is positively correlated to port throughput, while the number of passengers is not; in second place, we found a higher impact of port throughput when the liquid bulk is considered only for 10% of its weight; third, our main results are confirmed if we consider service and manufacturing employment instead of total employment.

► The paper studies the impact of port activities on local employment. ► The paper analyses a sample of about 560 European regions, over the period 2000–2006. ► The analysis is based on a set of employment equations with the GMM-System estimator. ► Regional employment is positively correlated to port throughput. ► The distinction among service and manufacturing employment confirms the results.