IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/egr/ejge00/v5i2p104-119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Editorial statement: Switching costs in the European postal service. Are there any solutions?

Author

Listed:
  • Carlos Pateiro-Rodriguez

    (Universidade da Coruña)

  • Carlos Javier Prado-Domínguez

    (Universidade da Coruña)

  • Jesus M. Garcia-Iglesias

    (Universidad de Extremadura)

  • Jose M. Barreiro-Viñan

    (Universidade da Coruña)

Abstract

This article examines the costs of switching that may exist in the European postal sector, where it is carried out an ambitious process of opening to competition since 1997. Inadequate regulation of the access to some elements of postal infrastructure or services within the scope of the universal postal service exists. This article proposes adaptations to ensure transparent and non-discriminatory access conditions to elements of postal infrastructure in line with the sectorial directives aimed at strengthening competition in the long term in the postal market. The proposed adaptations focus on services such as postcode systems, address databases, post office boxes, delivery boxes, re-direction and return to sender services. All of them can help reduce the switching cost and thus strengthen competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos Pateiro-Rodriguez & Carlos Javier Prado-Domínguez & Jesus M. Garcia-Iglesias & Jose M. Barreiro-Viñan, 2016. "Editorial statement: Switching costs in the European postal service. Are there any solutions?," European Journal of Government and Economics, Europa Grande, vol. 5(2), pages 104-119, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:egr:ejge00:v:5:i:2:p:104-119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ejge.org/index.php/ejge/article/download/90/66
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. de Bijl, P.W.J. & van Damme, E.E.C. & Larouche, P., 2005. "Regulating Access to Stimulate Competition in Postal Markets," Other publications TiSEM b3e1c006-3c6e-484c-b930-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Paul Klemperer, 1995. "Competition when Consumers have Switching Costs: An Overview with Applications to Industrial Organization, Macroeconomics, and International Trade," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(4), pages 515-539.
    3. Natalia Fabra & Alfredo García, 2015. "Dynamic Price Competition with Switching Costs," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 540-567, December.
    4. Woisetschläger, David M. & Lentz, Patrick & Evanschitzky, Heiner, 2011. "How habits, social ties, and economic switching barriers affect customer loyalty in contractual service settings," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(8), pages 800-808, August.
    5. Bikram Ghosh & Michael R. Galbreth, 2013. "The Impact of Consumer Attentiveness and Search Costs on Firm Quality Disclosure: A Competitive Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(11), pages 2604-2621, November.
    6. Mark Armstrong & David E.M. Sappington, 2006. "Regulation, Competition and Liberalization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(2), pages 325-366, June.
    7. Vance L. Martin & Chris Paterson & Jessie Xiaokang Wang, 2012. "Forecasting Letter Volumes: Augmenting Econometric Baseline Projections," Chapters, in: Michael A. Crew & Paul R. Kleindorfer (ed.), Multi-Modal Competition and the Future of Mail, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Jones, Michael A. & Mothersbaugh, David L. & Beatty, Sharon E., 2002. "Why customers stay: measuring the underlying dimensions of services switching costs and managing their differential strategic outcomes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 441-450, June.
    9. J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2004. "Consumer Learning, Brand Loyalty, and Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 134-145, December.
    10. Deligonul, Seyda & Kim, Daekwan & Roath, Anthony S. & Cavusgil, Erin, 2006. "The Achilles' heel of an enduring relationship: Appropriation of rents between a manufacturer and its foreign distributor," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 802-810, July.
    11. J. Miguel Villas‐Boas, 2006. "Dynamic Competition with Experience Goods," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 37-66, March.
    12. V. Brian Viard, 2007. "Do switching costs make markets more or less competitive? The case of 800-number portability," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 146-163, March.
    13. Preston R. Fee & Hugo M. Mialon & Michael A. Williams, 2004. "What Is a Barrier to Entry?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 461-465, May.
    14. Mengze Shi & Jeongwen Chiang & Byong-Duk Rhee, 2006. "Price Competition with Reduced Consumer Switching Costs: The Case of "Wireless Number Portability" in the Cellular Phone Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(1), pages 27-38, January.
    15. Alessandra Fratini & Bernard Roy & Joost Vantomme, 2010. "Access to Infrastructure and Service Elements in the Postal Sector," Chapters, in: Michael A. Crew & Paul R. Kleindorfer (ed.), Heightening Competition in the Postal and Delivery Sector, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Michael A. Crew & Paul R. Kleindorfer, 2006. "The Welfare Effects of Entry and Strategies for Maintaining the USO in the Postal Sector," Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy, in: Michael A. Crew & Paul R. Kleindorfer (ed.), Progress toward Liberalization of the Postal and Delivery Sector, chapter 0, pages 3-22, Springer.
    17. Paul W. J. Bijl & Eric Damme & Pierre Larouche, 2006. "Regulating Access to Stimulate Competition in Postal Markets?," Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy, in: Michael A. Crew & Paul R. Kleindorfer (ed.), Progress toward Liberalization of the Postal and Delivery Sector, chapter 0, pages 153-172, Springer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Florez Ramos, Esmeralda & Blind, Knut, 2020. "Data portability effects on data-driven innovation of online platforms: Analyzing Spotify," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(9).
    2. Czajkowski, Mikołaj & Sobolewski, Maciej, 2016. "How much do switching costs and local network effects contribute to consumer lock-in in mobile telephony?," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 855-869.
    3. Tingting He & Dmitri Kuksov & Chakravarthi Narasimhan, 2012. "Intraconnectivity and Interconnectivity: When Value Creation May Reduce Profits," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 587-602, July.
    4. Miguel Villas-Boas, J., 2015. "A short survey on switching costs and dynamic competition," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 219-222.
    5. Fabra, Natalia & García, Alfredo, 2015. "Market structure and the competitive effects of switching costs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 150-155.
    6. Nogata, Daisuke, 2022. "Determinants of household switching between natural gas suppliers: Evidence from Japan," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    7. Christian Jaag & Urs Trinkner, 2011. "A General Framework for Regulation and Liberalization in Network Industries," Chapters, in: Matthias Finger & Rolf W. Künneke (ed.), International Handbook of Network Industries, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Toker Doganoglu, 2010. "Switching costs, experience goods and dynamic price competition," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 167-205, June.
    9. Lucio Fuentelsaz & Juan Pablo Maicas & Yolanda Polo, 2012. "Switching Costs, Network Effects, and Competition in the European Mobile Telecommunications Industry," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 93-108, March.
    10. Luis Cabral, 2012. "Switching Costs and Equilibrium Prices," Working Papers 12-04, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    11. Mengze Shi, 2013. "A theoretical analysis of endogenous and exogenous switching costs," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 205-230, June.
    12. Luis Cabral, 2016. "Dynamic Pricing in Customer Markets with Switching Costs," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 43-62, April.
    13. M. Maegli & C. Jaag & M. Finger, 2010. "Regulatory Governance Costs in Network Industries: Observations in Postal Regulation," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, Intersentia, vol. 11(2), pages 207-238, June.
    14. Wang, Yu-Yin & Wang, Yi-Shun & Lin, Tung-Ching, 2018. "Developing and validating a technology upgrade model," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 7-26.
    15. Natalia Fabra & Alfredo García, 2015. "Dynamic Price Competition with Switching Costs," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 540-567, December.
    16. Tat Chan & Chakravarthi Narasimhan & Ying Xie, 2013. "Treatment Effectiveness and Side Effects: A Model of Physician Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1309-1325, June.
    17. Thomas, Catherine & Chen, Zhuoqiong (Charlie) & Stanton, Christopher T., 2020. "Information Spillovers in Experience Goods Competition," CEPR Discussion Papers 15255, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Mengze Shi, 2013. "A theoretical analysis of endogenous and exogenous switching costs," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 205-230, June.
    19. Usero Sánchez, Belén & Asimakopoulos, Grigorios, 2012. "Regulation and competition in the European mobile communications industry: An examination of the implementation of mobile number portability," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 187-196.
    20. Jason Pearcy, 2016. "Bargains Followed by Bargains: When Switching Costs Make Markets More Competitive," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 826-851, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    liberalization; universal postal service; switching costs; postal network;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L87 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Postal and Delivery Services
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
    • L32 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Public Enterprises; Public-Private Enterprises
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:egr:ejge00:v:5:i:2:p:104-119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Europa Grande (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.