The Economics of the Postal and Delivery Sector Business Strategies for an Essential Service

The book addresses the most recent challenges faced by the postal and delivery sector. This book includes original essays by prominent researchers and practitioners in the field of postal and delivery economics, originally presented at the 28th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics held online, December 1-5, 2020.  Chapters discuss topics such as the sustainability of the universal service obligations (USO) quality of service, last mile solutions, competition in liberalized markets, data protection, environmental sustainability, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This book will be a useful tool not only for graduate students and professors interested in postal and regulatory economics, but also for postal administrations, consulting firms, and federal government departments.  

Chapter 1. Competition in the Postal and Delivery Markets in Europe.- Chapter 2. The Game Theory of Cartels in the Postal Industry.- Chapter 3. When a price cost test is unnecessary for assessing pricing abuses - the Royal Mail case.- Chapter 4. Data and the regulation of e-commerce: data sharing vs. dismantling.- Chapter 5. An Assessment of USPS’ Negotiated Service Agreements and Platforms’ Direct Entry in Delivery.- Chapter 6. Least-Cost Parcel Delivery Methods in a Flexible Delivery Environment.- Chapter 7. Assessing Diversification in the Postal Sector.- Chapter 8. The Historical Contribution of Postal Service to Social Welfare in the United States.- Chapter 9. The risks of customer data processing under the GDPR: the Austria Post case.- Chapter 10. The Universal Postal Union. Quo Vadis.- Chapter 11. The legal definition of the postal service. Do we need to redefine the scope of postal regulation?.- Chapter 12. The futureof Services of General Economic Interest in the postal industry.- Chapter 13. Sustaining the USO: Toward a Case for Adapting Reserved Area Parameters in the Digital Age.- Chapter 14. Neither the Carrot nor the Stick. How to ensure adequacy of traditional postal operators’ funding in a rapidly transforming market.- Chapter 15. Has the Covid pandemic accelerated the rate of decline in business letters? Some early and preliminary analysis and thoughts.- Chapter 16. What is unfair? Assessing the unfairness of the universal postal service obligation.- Chapter 17. Net costs of USP’s service provision: challenges for the coming decade.- Chapter 18. The climate challenge: what role postal operators are going to and could lay to mitigate it?.- Chapter 19. The role of postal operators in the circular economy.

Pier Luigi Parcu is part-time Professor at the European University Institute (Italy) and Area Director of the Florence School of Regulation Communications & Media. He is Director of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom and Director of the Florence Competition Program in Law and Economics. His research in the area of industrial organization and law and economics focuses on the interaction between regulation and antitrust in shaping firms’ behavior.

Timothy J. Brennan is professor of public policy and economics at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (US). He has published over 135 articles and book chapters, principally on antitrust and regulatory economics, including the electricity, telecommunications, postal, oil pipeline, and other infrastructure sectors. He also has a strong interest in the nexus between economics and philosophy, which he has applied to questions such as the ethics of discount rates and the role of consumer error in designing energy policy.

Victor Glass is a professor of professional practice in the finance and economics department at Rutgers Business School (US). He is the director of the Center for Research in Regulated Industries. For almost thirty years, he was responsible for forecasting demand and setting access rates for more than 1,100 telephone companies and was heavily involved in regulatory reform. He has published studies of market and regulatory issues that have appeared in academic journals and trade magazines.