Maritime

In order to fully understand the recent rise and potential future of maritime ports, logistics, and the goods-moving sector as economic engines, it is useful to place the analysis in the larger context of the global and national economy. This requires a consideration of how the process of globalization, and the supporting institutional infrastructure, have contributed directly to the expansion of port economies and the rise to prominence of the logistics and supply chain management industry. As we enter a period of global economic crisis, many of the same factors and conditions that fueled the expansion must be considered in assessing the future vitality and viability of global transport and logistics. This paper will present a neo-Marxist theory of economic crisis based on the inevitable imbalance between the “capacity to produce” and the “capacity to consume” that explains the emergence of the current demand-side economic crisis. The extended phase of debt-driven demand and consumption -- that fueled globalization, the expansion of port economies, and the larger logistics industry -- led directly to the global financial crisis and the current state of stagnation and decline in the logistics sector.  The character of the ongoing crisis in comparison to past crises, and the factors responsible for its extended severity, will likely ensure the continuing depressed state of the logistics industry, supply chains, and maritime ports.  As a representative case of this dynamic, the paper examines the Jacksonville Florida port economy and the challenges facing the Jacksonville Port Authority (Jaxport).

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

"Data from: F. Hild – H. Hellenkemper, Kilikien und Isaurien (Tabula Imperii Byzantini 5). Vienna 1990, esp. pp. 128-142; H. Hellenkemper – F. Hild, Lykien und Pamphylien (Tabula Imperii Byzantini 8). Vienna 2004, esp. pp. 244-293;  G. Graßhoff – F. Mittenhuber (eds.), Untersuchungen zum Stadiasmos von Patara. Modellierung und Analyse eines antiken geographischen Streckennetzes. Bern 2009, esp. pp. 104-121.
The following network visualisations and calculations are based on the scheme for the systems of routes at land and sea in the Byzantine period as depicted in the above mentioned volumes, regardless of the relative significance of the respective routes in various periods of Late Antiquity and Byzantine history. At the same time, it neither takes into account the actual distance (and travel costs) between localities nor the connections via sea routes; therefore, the model is only a first rough approximation towards a more accurate model of the Byzantine transport system in its dynamics through centuries (cf. also Graßhoff – Mittenhuber, 2009, for a much more sophisticated model for Lycia). Interesting for this study is especially the modification of centrality measures if sea routes are added to the network of land routes.
Three centrality measures have been calculated; nodes in the graphs are scaled according to their relative centralities in this regard (centrality measures are of course only valid within the extract of the total route network of Asia Minor integrated into the network):
Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes.
Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible shortest routes between other nodes.
Eigenvector; eigenvector centrality is a measure of "indirect" centrality and indicates, if a node is connected to more or less central other nodes within the network.
For a similar study cf.  L. Isaksen, The application of network analysis to ancient transport geography: a case study of Roman Baetica. Digital Medievalist, 4 (2008) (http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/204515/)
For more information, contact: Johannes.Preiser-Kapeller@oeaw.ac.at 
All network graphs were created by the author with the help of the software package ORA*.
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Since the rise of India, Indonesia and China as world economic powers the Straits of Malacca have gained in economic importance. Location at the Straits provides the Malaysian states with a substantial maritime potential. Using an index of the development of the maritime economy between 2000 and 2010 the paper will analyse the competitive position of the Malaysian states along the Straits of Malacca. The question will be asked, how far these states have realized their maritime potential and have moved ahead of their competitors along the Straits of Malacca. The development of other maritime states will provide a benchmark, through which the maritime performance can be measured. It will be argued that Penang’s maritime potential as a gateway to the Indian Ocean could be more fully realized , whereas Johor has invested heavily in its harbour facilities and capitalized on its strategic position between the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea.

""The paper examines shipping finance in the Republic of Ragusa during the French Wars, a period of high risks and equally high profits for seafarers in the Mediterranean, focusing on maritime loans, a diachronic credit and insurance instrument which dominated daily practices of the maritime business in Ragusa and other ports. The material, which derives from maritime loan contracts dating between 1783 and 1805, preserved in the State Archives of Dubrovnik, is examined on the basis (a) of the basic parameters, terms and conditions in the market of Ragusa, and (b) of the protagonists themselves, looking at their social, cultural and economic background and the relationships, co-operation and disputes that aroused between them, through their contractual agreements.
Although there is abundance of primary sources of this type, mainly notarial documents, historical studies on the use and importance of maritime loan as credit and finance device in the Modern Period remain rather limited. The present study of the case of Ragusa, one of the last Mediterranean Maritime Republics, is a contribution in this direction, demonstrating that maritime loan was fully integrated in the shipping business mechanism and a very profitable investment for the individuals involved.""

"The ports and coastal zones constituted the most important points of interaction between the interior of Anatolia and the Mediterranean world; only along the 600 km long coast of Lycia and Pamphylia, for instance, medieval sources list almost 100 ports and landing places.  With the (anew) advance of the Seljuks towards the coast (conquest of Attaleia/Antalya in 1207, conquest of Sinope in 1214) and the increasing presence of Italian merchants in the harbours of the Aegean, the Black Sea and the Levant, maritime Asia Minor became a zone of intensive contacts between Byzantines (after 1204 in the exile realms of Nicaea and Trebizond), Armenians (in the Kingdom of Cilicia), Turks, Persians and Arabs (in the Sultanate of Konya) and “Latins” respectively “Franks”, thus also between Orthodox, Oriental and Western Churches as well as Islam (in its various denominations). With the fragmentation of Seljuk central power after the defeat against the Mongols in 1243 into various Emirates and their expansion especially into Western Asia Minor towards the Aegean and the establishment of Italian colonies (including “Catholic” bishoprics) in coastal towns and offshore islands (e. g. the Genoese on Chios and in Phokaia/Foça) and of the Knights Hospitallers on Rhodes, the number of zones of interaction, but also conflict increased (relocation of crusading efforts towards the Aegean in the 14th century, for instance). At the same time, Venetians and Genoese integrated all these locations and regions as hubs and nodes into their commercial networks and into the late medieval “World System”.  With the Ottoman Expansion, these territories were absorbed into one imperial framework once more (as it has existed under Byzantine rule until the 11th century), which finally also included the remaining western colonies (Rhodes in 1522/1523, Chios in 1566, Cyprus in 1571). During this period, “no other region of Europe or the Mediterranean became a cynosure of so many ethnicities in such a small place”.
Some of these aspects, such as the intensive trade between Venetian Crete and the Emirates in South-western Anatolia or the Genoese and the Turks in the 14th and 15th century , the military conflict between Crusaders and Turks in the Aegean  or the establishment of Latin monastic communities and bishoprics in the region  have already been analysed in greater detail. The same is true for aspects of religious transformations (especially conversions to Islam) in the region in the early modern period  as well as in late medieval centuries, but less so for maritime aspects of the organisation, identity and dynamics of various religious groups.  A view from the sea towards the coasts of Anatolia also opens a new perspective away from a “continental” overlapping of competing territorial claims towards a sum of potential nodal points within the late medieval network of socioeconomic interactions, which often modified or even overcame lines of religious, ethnic or political differentiation.
As we demonstrate in this paper, there existed various and manifold channels of encounters across religious border in maritime Asia Minor; their systematic survey and mapping contributes to a further embedding of the processes of political, economic and religious transformation in Anatolia in these centuries within the late medieval Mediterranean and Islamic world, complementary to already existing projects just as “The Islamisation of Anatolia” (https://www.islam-anatolia.ac.uk/).
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The research this paper came out from was carried out on behalf of the ILO. The project looked at more than 100 ports around the world, predominantly in Asia and the Pacific, culminating in successful guidelines for port privatisation. As a matter of fact, two voluminous reports were completed; one for Asia and the Pacific and the second for the world port industry.

This article discusses the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) theme for 2013, namely, “Sustainable Development: IMO’s Contribution beyond Rio+20.” The theme will serve for the World Maritime Day, coinciding on 26 September 2013. The article highlights some of IMO's more salient achievements in its 55 years of existence in the quest for sustainability. Challenges and limitations in IMO's governance paradigms are also emphasised, pointing to measured expectations.

The experience of the port of Esbjerg over the past few decades resembled many other ports throughout the world. As a consequence of rationalisa­tion in cargo handling and fish pro­cessing, the docks lost thousands of jobs. Structural changes in the labour market caused severe industrial unrest through the 1970s and 1980s, and in some ways the port town lost its traditional bustling quayside life. Yet the port town survived thanks mainly to two factors. One was the windfall discovery of oil in the North Sea, which for a generation at least has secured Esbjerg several thousand new ­jobs. The second was the fact that the profits from fishing were plowed back into developing the town’s industrial basis. The majority of these new businesses thrived on the town’s maritime past and developed an expertise in secondary maritime industries.