Motivations and methodology
The aim of this research is to answer two questions:
Which are the main economic and industrial characteristics of the FVG port system?
What is the economic role of the FVG port system?
With regard to the first question, the research identifies the number and type of firms that are part of FVG port system; which and how many type of activities they perform; how many people they employ; which is their output and their value added; where are they located and how many locations they have; and what is their profitability.
A choice is made of focusing only on goods transport activities, disregarding passengers, although some firms are concerned, and some infrastructures are used, also for passenger transport and cruises.
In order to identify the role that the FVG port system plays in the economic system, we decided to use an economic accounting scheme known as intersectoral table, along the lines of the one built by the Italian Bureau of Statistics (ISTAT) for the Italian economy. Since the focus is on port-related activities, 12 port-related sectors are identified and estimated. In the national I-O tables, port activities are included into two separate sectors, that is, maritime transport and supporting and auxiliary transport services. The result is a bi-regional (FVG-Other Italian Regions, hereafter, OIRs), 22 sector I-O table estimated for the year 2007. Sectors 1–12 are related to port activities performed in the FVG port system, sectors 13–17 are non-port-related activities performed in FVG and sectors 18–22 refer to activities performed in the OIRs.
The main research questions that can be answered by an I-O tablemodel are the following: (a) which interdependencies exist between the sectors of economic activity, or in what amount each sector buyssells goods and services from any other sector? (b) Which exchanges take place within the FVG region, between the FVG region and the OIRS and between the region FVG and the Rest of the World (hereafter, RW)? (c) In case of an increase in demand for a good or service produced by a sector of activity, which are the direct, indirect and induced impacts on production, employment and income at the aggregate level and for each sector and geographical area?