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Under the context of Pilot Free Trade Zones (PFTZs), ports are confronted with new opportunities to realize high-quality development. This paper first applies the Super-SBM model to evaluate and analyze the overall technical efficiency (OTE), pure technical efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE) of the ports in six typical China's PFTZs from 2010 to 2017 to reveal their development status. By further constructing an OTE-cargo throughput matrix and comparing OTE with and without considering undesirable outputs in 2017, the intensive and green development degree of ports are analyzed. Second, Tobit regression model is employed to identify the influencing factors from both external and internal aspects including the PFTZ factor together with economic and operational indicators. The main findings are as follows. (i) The ports' OTE in the six PFTZs is stable and high, with PTE on the rise and SE somewhat differentiated. Except for the mean of SE, sequences of the port efficiency in terms of standard deviations and other means roughly accords with the time sequence of PFTZs' establishment. (ii) There's heterogeneity in both intensive and green development degree of the ports, and Shanghai Port is the benchmark with the best performance. (iii) The PFTZ factor exerts a positive role in promoting port efficiency, while other significant influencing factors namely economic status, openness and population of hinterland, ownership structure, human capital, as well as operation scale of ports are also detected. Finally, suggestions on high-quality development and efficiency improvement of ports in the PFTZs are proposed. • Ports' OTE, PTE, and SE in six typical China's PFTZs are evaluated. • Evaluation results accord with the time sequence of PFTZs' establishment. • Heterogeneity are in both green and intensive development degree of the ports. • The effectiveness of PFTZ policy in promoting port efficiency is verified. • External and internal influencing factors are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Competitions between ports are evolving into competitions between supply chains. [•] Ports are transitioning into fourth-generation ports. [•] Shanghai FTZ is characterized by a very high level of legal autonomy. [•] The FTZ plays a pivotal role in regional economic development. [•] Shanghai FTZ impacts the competitiveness of other neighboring ports and cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's free trade zone (FTZ) policy satisfies China's objective demand to get geared to the economic globalization trend and forms an essential part of China's opening-up strategy, creating new opportunities for Chinese seaports. Seaport development is subject to its throughput and the import and export trade scale of the city where it's located, but the growth rates of the two are not synchronized. To identify the impacts of FTZ policies on China's free trade seaports, with port throughput and import and export trade scale of the city taken into consideration, this article selects four Chinese seaports, namely Shanghai Port, Tianjin Port, Guangzhou Port, and Fuzhou Port, which are located in the FTZ establishment earlier, and bases the study on the port throughputs and import and export trade volumes of their cities from 2000 to 2020 for empirical testing with the allometric growth model and linear scale factors. The results show that the impacts of FTZ policies exhibit differences from region to region. Specifically, the FTZ promotion policies have lagging impacts on Shanghai Port and Tianjin Port. The Guangdong Free Trade Zone's policies have a short-term continuous promoting impact on Guangzhou Port's production. In contrast, Fujian Free Trade Zone's policies are a strong stimulus to the development of Fuzhou Port. The empirical test about the FTZ policies' impacts on seaport development will provide a theoretical basis for figuring out the critical role of FTZ in promoting the high-quality development of seaports and boost the coordinated development of ports and urban economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]