Greek imports from china: monopoly power of the piraeus port deal

This study focuses on the imports of Greece from nearly 40 countries since the purchase of the operating rights to the port of Piraeus by Chinese state-owned shipping company Costco. Since 2016, China has become one of the largest trading partners of Greece. We motivate the inclusion of Chinese imports to Greece as an explanatory variable in an import demand framework using the Stackelberg Model with China acting as a leader choosing the profit-maximizing quantity of imports. Using yearly data from 2001 to 2021, results from a generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation show substitution effects of imports from China versus other countries since 2016. Given the demonstrated market power of China in this major European port, industries in other European nations must be finding alternate routes to export or transport.