Productivity and Technical Change in a Public Service Enterprise

Bradley, Michael; Colvin, Jeffrey

doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-5122-2_6

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Bradley and Colvin (1999) focused on mail sorting and estimated a multiproduct total cost function for 250 US sorting centers between 1988 and 1996. They found evidence for substantial 5 For example, see for example Caves et al (1981), Caves et al (1984), Cabini and Filippini (2003) or (transport sector), Koshal and Koshal (1999) or Sav (2004) (higher education), Fu and Heffernan (2008) (banking sector), Preyra and Pink (2006), Filippini (2001) or Farsi et al (2008b) (health sector), Nerlove (1963), Filippini (1996), Fraquelli et al (2004), Farsi et al (2007) or Farsi et al (2008a) (electricity distribution), Filippini and Luchsinger (2007) (hydropower).…”

Section: Previous Studies On Economies Of Scale and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

“…First and most importantly, the issue of unobserved heterogeneity remains mainly undiscussed. Only Bradley and Colvin (1999) and Cazals et al (2005) address this problem in the distribution process using fixed and random effects models, respectively, but none of the studies on the collection process takes a closer look on this issue. Second, Gazzei et al (2002) indeed allude to the problem of unsaturation in post office networks in their paper, but neither they nor the other authors propose a satisfying solution to quantify the impact of unsaturation.…”

Section: Previous Studies On Economies Of Scale and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Economies of scale and scope and opening hours in post offices and agencies

Filippini¹,

Koller²,

Trinkner³

2010

Heightening Competition in the Postal and Delivery Sector

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this study is to analyze the cost structure of Swiss Post's postal outlets. In particular, the idea is to assess economies of scale and scope in post offices and franchised postal agencies.Information on their optimal size and production structure is of importance from the policy-makers' point of view because this hypothetical situation may be a basis for calculation of reimbursements when providing the universal service. Two important novelties are introduced in this study. First, the latent class model accounts for postal outlets with different underlying production technologies, caused by unobserved factors. Second, the cost model includes standby time as an indicator of public service because regulated accessibility and negotiated opening hours that enhance public service frequently lead to opening hours that exceed the time necessary to operate the demand. Overall, this analysis confirms the existence of increasing unexploited economies of scale and scope with falling outputs in the Swiss Post office network. Furthermore, the results for the latent class model point to the existence of unobserved heterogeneity in the industry.

show abstract