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Productivity at the post: its drivers and its distribution

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Abstract

We study the productivity, financial and distributional performance of the United States Postal Service subsequent to its 1971 reorganization. We investigate the magnitude and the economic drivers of productivity change (technical change, change in cost efficiency, and scale economies), and we investigate the distribution of the financial benefits of productivity change (among consumers of postal services, postal employees and other resource suppliers, and residual claimants). We find improvements in technology to have been the main driver of, and diseconomies of scale to have been the main drag on, productivity change. We find labor to have been the main beneficiary, and consumers of postal services the main losers, from postal reorganization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament d’Economia de l’Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici B–Campus de la UAB, Bellaterra (Cerdanyola de Vallés), Barcelona, 08193, Spain

    E. Grifell-Tatjé

  2. University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    C. A. K. Lovell

  3. University of Queensland, School of Economics, Colin Clark Building, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

    C. A. K. Lovell

Authors
  1. E. Grifell-Tatjé
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  2. C. A. K. Lovell
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Correspondence to E. Grifell-Tatjé.

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Grifell-Tatjé, E., Lovell, C.A.K. Productivity at the post: its drivers and its distribution. J Regul Econ 33, 133–158 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11149-007-9051-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11149-007-9051-y

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