The Performance of Seaport Clusters - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

Chapter 8 – Clustering in Seaports 103
The availability of data to analyze the relevant cluster region for the LMPC is relatively good.
Apart from the port facilities in the LMPC, port infrastructure exists in other Louisiana
Counties. Therefore, we have limited the analysis of the relevant cluster region to the
counties located at the banks of the Mississippi river. Table 30 shows the results of a
concentration analysis for different counties.
Table 30: The relevant cluster region of the LMPC (based on data for 2002)
County Total
number of
firms
Plaquemines
Of which: cluster
activities
Share cluster
activities
Specialization
index
737 86 11.7% 8.2
West Baton- Rouge 430 38 8.8% 6.2
Lafourche 1,836 155 8.4%
5.9
St James 313 21 6.7% 4.7
St. John 626 37 5.9% 4.2
St. Charles 884 52 5.9% 4.1
Iberville 542 28 5.2% 3.6
Terrebonne 2,698 108 4.0% 2.8
St. Bernard 1,191 41 3.4% 2.4
Ascension 1,518 45 3.0% 2.1
Jefferson 12,842 337 2.6% 1.8
Orleans 10,619 220 2.1% 1.5
Assumption 248 4 1.6% 1.1
Livingston 1,228 19 1.5% 1.1
St Tammary 4,634 68 1.5% 1.0
East Baton Rouge 11,499 164 1.4% 1.0
Source: US Bureau of Census (2003)
The counties with a specialization index of more than 1.5 are included in the cluster region.
The counties Orleans and Jefferson, with by far the largest number of port related firms,
have a relatively low specialization index. As in Rotterdam, this is explained by the presence
of large numbers of service firms in these metropolitan areas.