Economies of scale and cost efficiency in the postal services: empirical evidence from Switzerland

This paper investigates the scale and cost efficiency of the Swiss Post using an econometric approach. Our empirical analysis considers a sample of postal offices operating in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. The paper considers estimation of a log-log cost function employing a data set for the year 2001 with information on 47 small local post offices. The empirical evidence indicates the existence of economies of scale. Further, the outcome of this analysis shows that approximately 50% of the postal offices operate close to the regional standard for efficiency.

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