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...

We analyse a (differentiated good) industry where an incumbent firm owns a network good (essential input) and faces potential competition in the (downstream) retail market. Unlike the traditional approach, we consider a scenario where the decision to compete or not in the downstream segment is...