Expanding Competition in Regulated Industries reviews the changing regulatory environment, notably incentive regulation and competition in regulated industries. Some of the major changes in electricity, gas, and telephone utilities allow for competition in local service through unbundling. This book is of interest to researchers, utility managers, regulatory commissions, and the Federal Government.

This volume focuses on incentive regulation and competition. While much of the regulatory action is taking place in telecommunications, the impact of competition and the resultant regulatory change is being felt in other traditional public utilities including electricity. The book reviews topics including price caps, incentive regulation, market structure and new regulatory technologies.

The UK has pioneered the introduction of competition into service industries. The radical policy innovations have been controversial. This volume looks at the lessons which have emerged from the UK so far, and considers the implications for future policy in the UK and for other countries following its precedent.

Competitive Transformation of the Postal and Delivery Sector is an indispensable source of information and analysis on the current state of the postal and delivery sector. It offers current insights of leading researchers and practitioners into strategy and regulation as well as the economics of this sector. Issues addressed include national and international perspectives, financial viability, the universal service obligation, regulation, competition, entry, the role of scale and scope economies, the nature and role of cost and demand analysis in postal service, productivity, interaction of law and economics, human resources, transition and reform issues. The papers in the book were selected from the papers presented at the 11th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics, Toledo, Spain, June 4-7, 2003.

Deregulation has introduced competition into traditionally monopolistic markets, particularly telecommunications and electric utilities. This book brings together ten essays that were presented at the Center for Research in Regulated Industries at Rutgers University and funded by several regulated companies. The authors, who include young scholars as well as established and highly regarded consultants and researchers, address some of the major issues now facing network industries and regulators - deregulation, competition, stranded assets, diversification, pricing, and mergers and acquisitions.

Worldwide, there is considerable interest in postal and delivery economics. Governments, particularly in the European Union, are examining closely the roles of the two systems and how best to regulate them. This volume brings together 20 essays originally presented at the 12th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics held in Cork, Ireland in June 2004. Contributors include researchers, practitioners, and senior managers from throughout the world.

Regulation Under Increasing Competition brings together practitioners, regulators, and economists to examine the important policy and regulatory issues facing the telecommunications and electricity industries. This volume reviews such topics as competitive entry, stranded costs, pricing and market mechanisms. It provides a unique perspective on problems in a newly deregulated environment.

When Postmaster General Creswell penned his concern about the impact 2 of electronic diversion on his postal organization, the year was 1872. General Creswell, it turned out, fretted unnecessarily. Facsimile did not achieve commercial viability until roughly a century after his tenure as Postmaster General and today that technology is fading rapidly from the communication scene. Moreover, it never appears to have significantly affected physical letter volumes. However, if General Creswell were leading a major postal organization today, he likely would feel threatened by the potential of Internet communication to cause electronic diversion of physical mail. Should recent technology developments cause the oft-predicted (but so far incorrect) inflection point that would mark the beginning of declining mail volumes. the implications from a management standpoint will be profound. The relatively fixed nature of postal costs suggest that volume declines must be offset though improved productivity, reduced cost of inputs, revenue from new products that share common costs, or reduced level of universal service.

Electricity Pricing In Transition is written to address the new issues facing utilities, retailers, regulators, and customers in the changing electricity market. It is organized into five sections. Section I deals with the new restructured organization that has emerged from yesterday's vertically integrated, regulated monopoly company. Section II deals with issues in competitive pricing. Section III reviews the role of demand response and product design in today's chaotic marketplace. Given the single importance of California's energy crisis and the fact that it will be studied for years to come, Section IV is devoted to studying the lessons learned from this crisis. The final section of the book deals with markets and regulations. This book will provide practitioners with guidance on how to avoid the major pitfalls in pricing electricity while the market is in transition by drawing upon the insights and lessons learned from the experience of others that are documented in this book.