Versenyellenes magatartás, egyenlőtlen feltételek a teljes postai piacnyitást követően

This paper assesses the potential distortive impacts of state aids and of incumbent firms' market behaviours and business strategies on competitive outcome. The problems emerged within the framework of the third postal directive, the unresolved questions of regulation and the contradictions between postal and other regulations are analyzed in the first part. The second part describes the most typical anti-competitive practices. The third and fourth part discusses the effects of state aids and mergers in the postal sector, finally the Hungarian competition issues are examined

Ergative Case and the Transitive Subject: A View from Nez Perce

Ergative case, the special case of transitive subjects, raises questions not only for the theory of case but also for theories of subjecthood and transitivity. This paper analyzes the case system of Nez Perce, a ”three-way ergative” language, with an eye towards a formalization of the category of transitive subject. I show that it is object agreement that is determinative of transitivity, and hence of ergative case, in Nez Perce. I further show that the transitivity condition on ergative case must be coupled with a criterion of subjecthood that makes reference to participation in subject agreement, not just to origin in a high argument-structural position. These two results suggest a formalization of the transitive subject as that argument uniquely accessing both high and low agreement information, the former through its (agreement-derived) connection with T and the latter through its origin in the specifier of a head associated with object agreement (v). In view of these findings, I argue that ergative case morphology should be analyzed not as the expression of a syntactic primitive but as the morphological spell-out of subject agreement and object agreement on a nominal.Linguistic

E-commerce in Europe: Parcel delivery prices in a digital single market

In its Digital Single Market strategy, the European Commission has rightly noted the importance of reducing the price paid for basic cross-border parcel delivery by consumers and by small and medium size retail senders. The payment flows for cross-border parcel delivery are strikingly similar to those for telecommunications. Comparisons with roaming can be instructive. As with roaming, it is clear that the links between wholesale payments between the national postal operators and retail prices need to be properly understood in order to craft good policy. Another useful lesson is that national postal regulatory authorities are unlikely to address cross-border problems because of limitations in their respective mandates and because they have no incentive to take measures to benefit residents of other countries. There are also significant differences between roaming and parcel delivery. While high wholesale charges were a major driver of high retail prices for international mobile roaming, the wholesale payments for cross-border parcel delivery appear to be below cost. This implies that it is the 'spread' between retail price and the wholesale payment that is inflated, at least for small retail senders and for consumers. Comprehensive statistics gathering, coordinated at European level, is indispensable

E-commerce in Europe: parcel delivery prices in a digital single market. Bruegel Policy Contribution ISSUE 2016/09 May 2016

Highlights • In its Digital Single Market strategy, the European Commission has rightly noted the importance of reducing the price paid for basic cross-border parcel delivery by consumers and by small and medium size retail senders. • The payment flows for cross-border parcel delivery are strikingly similar to those for telecommunications. Comparisons with roaming can be instructive. As with roaming, it is clear that the links between wholesale payments between the national postal operators and retail prices need to be properly understood in order to craft good policy. Another useful lesson is that national postal regulatory authorities are unlikely to address cross-border problems because of limitations in their respective mandates and because they have no incentive to take measures to benefit residents of other countries. • There are also significant differences between roaming and parcel delivery.While high wholesale charges were a major driver of high retail prices for international mobile roaming, the wholesale payments for cross-border parcel delivery appear to be below cost.This implies that it is the ‘spread’ between retail price and thewholesale payment that is inflated, at least for small retail senders and for consumers. • Comprehensive statistics gathering, coordinated at European level, is indispensable

The Policy Effects of Multilevel Regulation in Europe. Insights from the Energy and Postal Sector

This paper examines the policy effects of multilevel regulation in Europe. It finds that the extent to which negative integration effectively narrows the range of policy options available domestically tends to be overstated. Drawing on empirical evidence from EU-induced reform in electricity supply and postal delivery, the paper illustrates that liberalisation and institutional reorganisation may lead to relatively little policy change. Although a lack of centralised regulatory capacity at the European level is identified as a key explanatory factor for the cases studied, the findings also point to the relevance of sector specificities and the role of exogenous drivers of change

Cross-Border Parcel Delivery Prices: Intuitions drawn from the world of telecommunications

In its Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy, the European Commission has rightly noted the importance of lowering the price paid for basic cross-border delivery by consumers and by small and medium size retail shippers. Consumers and SMEs may have few alternatives to the National Postal Operators (NPOs), or may be unaware of the options that they have. These concerns led to the Commission to put forward a legislative proposal in May 2016.3 With its legislative proposal, the Commission has sought (1) to strengthen the data gathering powers of Member State postal regulatory authorities, and to oblige them to collect data at both retail and wholesale levels; (2) to increase transparency into pricing for those who use cross-border parcel delivery services; (3) to oblige Member State postal regulatory authorities to assess annually the affordability of these services; and (4) to open cross-border Terminal Dues (TD) and Inward Land Rates (ILR) arrangements to competitors There are parallels that can be drawn between the payment flows for cross-border parcel delivery and those of telecommunications, especially those of international mobile roaming. As with roaming, it is clear that the linkages between wholesale payments between and corresponding retail prices need to be properly understood in order to craft good policy. Another useful lesson is that Member State postal regulatory authorities are unlikely to address cross-border problems not only because of limitations in their respective mandates, but also because they have no incentive to take challenging measures to benefit residents of other countries. There are, however, also important differences between roaming versus parcel delivery. Where high wholesale charges were a major driver of high retail prices for international mobile roaming, the wholesale payments for cross-border parcel delivery appear instead to be below cost. This implies that it is the “spread” between retail price and the wholesale payment that is inflated, at least for small retail shippers and for consumers. Reviewing the Commission's proposed Regulation with all of this in mind, it appears to be on target. The main question that remains open is whether NPOs will be able to adjust TD and ILR rates upward to reflect true costs, as they will be strongly motivated to do; here as well, however, there are grounds for cautious optimism