Abstract
Postal administrations often claim that without a legal monopoly2 to protect them from cream skimming, they would not be able to continue providing universal service at uniform and affordable prices. Because they serve delivery points with a range of profitability, postal administrations fear that without monopoly protection cream skimmers would capture their high profit routes, leaving them with their less profitable routes. The question is, would cream skimming divert so much volume that universal service at affordable prices becomes infeasible?
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Postal Rate Commission.
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References
Cohen, Robert, and Edward Chu. 1997. “A Measure of Scale Economies for Postal Systems.” In Managing Change in the Postal and Delivery Industries, edited by M.A. Crew and P.R. Kleindorfer. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Cohen, Robert, Edward Chu, William Ferguson, and Spyros Xenakis. 1997. “A Cross Sectional Comparison and Analysis of Productivity for 21 National Postal Administrations.” In Managing Change in the Postal and Delivery Industries, edited by M.A. Crew and P.R. Kleindorfer. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Cohen, Robert, William Ferguson, and Spyros Xenakis. 1993. “Rural Delivery and the Universal Service Obligation: A Quantitative Investigation.” In Regulation and the Nature of Postal Delivery Services, edited by M.A. Crew and P.R. Kleindorfer. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
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Cohen, R.H., Ferguson, W.W., Waller, J.D., Xenakis, S.S. (1999). An Analysis of the Potential for Cream Skimming in the United States Residential Delivery Market. In: Crew, M.A., Kleindorfer, P.R. (eds) Emerging Competition in Postal and Delivery Services. Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy Series, vol 31. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5122-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5122-2_10
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