Bücher der Reihe Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy

This edited book includes original essays by prominent researchers and practitioners in the field of postal and delivery economics, originally presented at the 30th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics held in Rimini, Italy, May 25¿27, 2022. The central foci of the book are the role of digital platforms in the postal sector and the impact of vertically integrated firms in delivery markets. Other important topics include the regulation of parcels and their environmental footprint, in light of the innovations affecting the so-called last mile, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the postal sector, on both the global and local levels. Chapters also discuss traditional topics for postal and delivery sectors, including postal costs, the funding of Universal Service Obligation (USO) and the related role of Universal Service Providers. This book is 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.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 envisioned a competitive free-for-all in the U.S. telecommunications industry with removal of barriers to entry in local telecommunications markets and the lifting of the artificial restrictions that kept the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) out of the interLATA long-distance market.

Competitive Transformation of the Postal and Delivery Sector is an indispensable source of information and analysis on the current state of the postal and delivery sector.

This monograph is concerned with the determination of the allowed rate ofreturn in rate cases which, in part, determines the rates ofcharge to customers of public utilities. Most rate cases include opposing testimony as to the "fair" rate of return or even the cost ofcapital for a public utility whose rates are at issue.

" So from the beginning I always considered the concept ofX-(in)efficiency to be a valuable one for understanding human behavior. Professor Leibenstein suggested that I consider how some empirical evidence which was being cited as evidence for the role of property rights might also be consistent with XE theory.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 envisioned a competitive free-for-all in the U.S. telecommunications industry with removal of barriers to entry in local telecommunications markets and the lifting of the artificial restrictions that kept the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) out of the interLATA long-distance market.

In the winter of 1996, after 4 years of planning and research, the Symposium on the Virtual Utility was held in Saratoga Springs, New York.

My curiosity with the economic efficiency and social benefits of provisions used by telecommunications carriers to limit their liability to customers for damages arising from service interruptions and network outages is a longstanding one.

Its purpose is to educate the reader about how traditional analytic techniques can be used to assess new telecommunications products and how new analytic techniques can better address existing products.

This book addresses major issues facing postal and delivery services throughout the world. Worldwide, there is currently a considerable amount of interest in postal and delivery economics. The industry is reacting to a state of near crisis and is implementing different drastic changes. The European Commission and member States are still wrestling with the problem of how to implement entry liberalization into postal markets, how to address digital competition, and how to maintain the Universal Service Obligation (USO).Digitalization, technological development and online platforms are strongly affecting both the way postal and delivery operators are managing their services, as well as their role on the market. Strong emphasis was attributed to the assets of Postal Operators (POs) and their added value in the digital age, as well as on new business strategies. This volume presents original essays by prominent researchers in the field, selected and edited from papers presented at the 27th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics held in Dublin, Ireland, 22-25 May, 2019. Topics addressed by this volume include the fragmentation of the postal supply chain, blockchain and digital postal services, and the fading of traditional postal market boundaries. This book will be a useful tool not only for graduate students and professors, but also for postal administrations, consulting firms, and federal government departments.

This book focuses on the antitrust process and how that process affects the efficiency of antitrust law enforcement. The contributors share a wide range of experiences in the antitrust process, including academia, the legal environment, and both private and public sectors.

In the centennial year of the birth of Sir John Cockcroft, first master of my Cam bridge College, Churchill, and the first man to split the atomic nucleus by artificial means, it is indeed relevant to consider the outcome of his efforts at developing atomic power.

Issues addressed include international postal policy, the universal service obligation, regulation, competition, entry, the role of scale and scope economies, the nature and role of cost and demand analysis in postal service, productivity, interaction of law and economics, human resources, transition and reform issues.

This book focuses on the antitrust process and how that process affects the efficiency of antitrust law enforcement. The contributors share a wide range of experiences in the antitrust process, including academia, the legal environment, and both private and public sectors.

Part II: Price Regulation The second partofthis volume examines the role ofprice regulation in controlling health care costs. First, is there a clear need for price regulation, and second, can price regulation work in this industry?

This book addresses major issues facing postal and delivery services throughout the world. Worldwide, there is currently a considerable amount of interest in postal and delivery economics. The industry is reacting to a state of near crisis and is implementing different drastic changes. The European Commission and member States are still wrestling with the problem of how to implement entry liberalization into postal markets, how to address digital competition, and how to maintain the universal service obligation (USO). The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 in the U.S. has perhaps created and exacerbated the problems faced by USPS.Digitalisation, technological development and online platforms are strongly affecting both the way postal and delivery operators are managing their services as well as their role on the market. Strong emphasis was attributed to the assets of Postal Operators (POs) and their added value in the digital age as well as on new business strategies.This volume presents original essays by prominent researchers in the field, selected and edited from papers presented at this year's 26th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics held in Split, Croatia, from May 30- June 2, 2018.Topics addressed by this volume include quality of service, last mile solutions, and competition in the liberalized market. This book will be a useful tool not only for graduate students and professors, but also for postal administrations, consulting firms, and federal government departments.

This book will be of interest to postal operators, regulatory commissions, consulting firms, competitors and customers, experts in the postal economics, law, and business, and those charged with the responsibility for designing and implementing postal sector policies.

In its positive dimension, rent-seeking contributions have provided an important analy tical perspective from which to understand and to predict the behavior of politicians, interest groups and bureaucrats, the media and the academy within the political market place.

Deregulation of Electric Utilities reviews the main issues relating to the changing environment in the utility industry. In addition, this book assesses early experiences in electricity deregulation in continental Europe, New Zealand, North America, and the United Kingdom.

While much of the regulatory action is taking place in telecommunications, the impact of competition and the resultant regulatory change is being felt in other traditional public utilities including electricity. The book reviews topics including price caps, incentive regulation, market structure and new regulatory technologies.

Randall B, Lowe Piper & Marbury, L.L.R The issue of costing and pricing in the telecommunications industry has been hotly debated for the last twenty years. Indeed, we are still wrestling today over the cost of the local exchange for access by interexchange and competitive local ex change carriers, as well as for universal service funding.

This project grew out of a recognition that I could fmd no aggregate measure of the amount of regulation beyond crude proxies such as the number of pages in the Federal Register.

But unlike in other sectors, the very organization of network industries creates major impediments to potential entrants trying to carve out a niche in the market.

International trade issues, transaction costs, property rights, economic theories of government, the role of special institutions such as contracts, the defects of macroeconomic and equity arguments for regulating individual markets, environmental economics and the defects of public land management policies are examined.

Regulation Under Increasing Competition brings together practitioners, regulators, and economists to examine the important policy and regulatory issues facing the telecommunications and electricity industries. It provides a unique perspective on problems in a newly deregulated environment.

Any Chainnan of the British Post Office dwells in the shadow of Rowland Hill, and, if he were an honest man, he probably from time to time, while singing the praises of Rowland Hill, as is his due, thinks a silent thought of sympathy for his predecessor Colonel Maberly, the head of the Post Office, the Champion of established orthodoxy, the leader of the Professionals, who had to endure the irresistible force of Hill's arguments combined with his skills as a pamphleteer, agitator, and political propagandist. My favorite passage of the book Royal Mail by Martin Daunton (1985) shows how much the Post Office of the day needed a Rowland Hill to challenge Colonel Maberly and all that he stood for. I quote from a passage describing how the Colonel, when he arrived at about 11:00 a.m. and while enjoying his breakfast, listened to his private secretary reading the morning's correspondence. Daunton records: The Colonel, still half engaged with his private correspondence, would hear enough to make him keep up a rumring commentary of disparaging grunts, "Pooh! stuff! upon my soul!" etc.

Postal service is facing some very important challenges arising out of the increasingly high-tech nature of postal service, the entry of competition into the business, and new attitudes on the part of government to postal service.

This book is based on a conference on `Regulation and the Evolving Nature of Postal and Delivery Services: 1992 and Beyond' held at Village PTT, La Londe les Maures, France, on March 18, 1992.