Letter markets are still highly regulated in most countries. Some countries, such as those of the European Union, plan to liberalize letter markets within this decade. Competition will provide many new challenges and opportunities for established and new players. In this paper we analyze...

Letter markets are still highly regulated in many countries. The European Commission, however, plans to liberalize letter markets in all member states within this decade. We describe the economic characteristics of letter markets, identify four likely regulatory scenarios, and analyze business...

In the advent of postal market liberalization in several European countries we expect that the incumbent operators anticipate entry by competitors who are not required to offer universal service, i.e. coverage of the entire country and uniform pricing. The market for postal service exhibits...

The US Postal Service (USPS) provides “market dominant” services on an exclusive ba-sis, e.g., first class mail, and “competitive” services in markets with other rivals, e.g., parcel delivery. Rivals in the competitive market have long complained that USPS underprices if not...

Postal markets have been open to competition for a long time. But, with a few exceptions, the competitors of the incumbent postal operator are active on the upstream segments of the market-preparation, collection, outward sorting and transport of mail products. With the further steps planned in...

In the advent of postal market liberalization in several European countries we expect that the incumbent operators anticipate entry by competitors who are not required to offer universal service, i.e. coverage of the entire country and uniform pricing. The market for postal service exhibits...