Abstract
Since 1988, the European Commission has been developing policy on European postal services. This has been brought about by the recognition of the importance of the postal sector for communication and trade in the single European market and the economic and social cohesion of the Member States. The wide disparity between service quality levels achieved within Member States and the poor quality of cross border services, in particular, were regarded as unsatisfactory. The objectives of the developing postal policy have been the harmonisation of postal services and the establishment of fair and non-discriminatory treatment of customers.
1In preparing this paper the author has benefited from discussions with a number of people. In particular I would like to express my appreciation to the contributions made by Catherine Churchard and Stephen Agar of the Post Office Legal Services department and Paul Richards, Jeanne Golay and Frank Rodrigues of the Post Office’s Economic Advisory Group. (Jeanne Golay is now Director of Competition and Consumer Affairs at the Office of Gas Regulation.) I would also like to thank Profs. Michael Crew, Paul Kleindorfer, William Kovacic, and Rodney Maddock for their very useful comments on an early draft of this paper.
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References
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Reay, I. (1997). The Structure of Postal Markets. In: Crew, M.A., Kleindorfer, P.R. (eds) Managing Change in the Postal and Delivery Industries. Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy Series, vol 25. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6321-1_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6321-1_19
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