Port Economics, Policy and Management: Review of an Emerging Research Field

Abstract This paper reviews research in port economics, policy and management during the period 1997–2008. In an increasingly international economy, research interest in ports is gradually emerging. This paper examines the developments, themes and characteristics of this research, by reviewing a comprehensive database consisting of all the 395 relevant journal papers on ports that were published during the period 1997–2008. With the use of quantitative and qualitative bibliometric tools, the paper identifies the characteristics of the port research community (such as the authors’ country of affiliation, number of authors involved and international collaboration rates). It also identifies the main characteristics of this emerging scientific research field (such as research approaches, units of analysis, samples of the ports examined and commodities analysed). Finally, the paper develops a content classification that distinguishes the main research subfields, identifies leading papers for these subfields and uses a cross‐citation analysis to analyse the coherence of the port research field.