EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Pricing by state-owned enterprises: the case of postal services

R. Richard Geddes
Additional contact information
R. Richard Geddes: Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, Postal: Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

Managerial and Decision Economics, 2008, vol. 29, issue 7, 575-591

Abstract: Sappington and Sidak develop a model of state-owned enterprise (SOE) pricing behavior in which firms maximize a weighted average of revenues and profits. The model predicts that SOEs will lower prices in more-elastic markets and raise them in less-elastic markets if the weight they place on profit is positive. The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 relaxed the institutional constraints on pricing by the US Postal Service, which allows a test of the Sappington-Sidak model. The model's predictions are broadly confirmed. Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act in 2006, which may help address some anticompetitive concerns in this industry. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/mde.1420 Link to full text; subscription required (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:29:y:2008:i:7:p:575-591

DOI: 10.1002/mde.1420

Access Statistics for this article

Managerial and Decision Economics is currently edited by Antony Dnes

More articles in Managerial and Decision Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:29:y:2008:i:7:p:575-591