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...

The development of internet technology has reshaped the market structure for many products. We study the price competition problem between online stores and offline stores, by allowing consumers' preferences to be more favorable towards online shopping. We consider 3 scenarios: (1) market with...

This paper studies a liberalized postal market where entrants may offer end-to-end products or concentrate on one of the segments of the network. Absent effective bypass, entry does not appear to be a serious financial threat to the incumbent, even when the products are perfect substitutes. This...

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...

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...