Rand Costich, presented a paper proposing an auction of postage discouts at the Eastern Conference of the Center for Research in Regulated Industries. The auction presented is a descending clock auction that uses successive bids to construct customized nonlinear outlay schedules (aka expenditure functions) for each bidder.[1] The outlay schedules represent declining block tariffs. in [...] Read more »
The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) has issued a request for proposal seeking a contractor to quantify the social value of postal services. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the impact (costs and/or benefits) of the community presence of the Postal Service (post offices, daily delivery to homes, its (competitive) products, etc.) on: [...] Read more »
The Urban Institutes report identifies a set of social benefits that the U.S. Postal Service provides through the provision of mail services and its corporate retail network. This study represents a first and necessary step in understanding the value of postal services regardless of how those services are provided. The Postal Rate Commission has issued a request for proposal to conduct the study that Urban Institute recommends in their report. Read more »
By William F. Shughart II, a senior fellow of the Independent Institute, is F.A.P Barnard Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Mississippi. The U.S. Postal Service is deeply in the red. Projecting a deficit of $238 billion over the next decade, its governors propose two solutions: halting Saturday delivery and raising stamp prices [...] Read more »
In his monthly commentary, Joe Schick, Directory of Postal Affairs for Quad Graphics reviews the latest news from Washington on issues affecting companies that use the Postal Service to deliver their mail and parcels. He highlights the good, the bad, and the neutral. He reviews legislative news as well. Read more »
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) today issued its report required by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) on business model and regulatory framework for the Postal Service. The GAO report presented a set of strategies to help the Postal Service develop a better operating management model, and noted which of those strategies require Congressional approval. The GAO also presented a more limited set of strategies to raise postal revenue that require both regulatory flexibility and Congressional action. Read more »
By Murray Comarow “Clarity is a necessary but not sufficient condition: one can be clear and boring, clear and useless, clear and untruthful, clear and vulgar, but these are subjects for another discussion. If one is not clear there is no message at all.” –Primo Levi A printable PDF file of this article can be [...] Read more »
By Gene, Del Polito The Washington Post recently published an interesting piece on the challenges facing the U.S. Postal Service. The Post rightly noted that mail volume has declined significantly, in part, due to the nation’s economic woes, and, in part, due to the changing way in which Americans communicate and do business. Washington Post [...] Read more »
By Kate Muth Former Deputy Postmaster General Michael Coughlin made a strong case for the Postal Service to stay out of non-postal services in his testimony before a recent House oversight hearing. Coughlin wasn’t necessarily arguing against the idea, he was just laying out the experience of European posts that have traveled down this path. [...] Read more »
