The paper uses a small dataset containing market, operator, policy, and general conditions data to gain some estimates on policy impact and shows how such data could be useful to analyze and evaluate policy settings for the postal industry. The estimation outcomes from Fixed Effects regressions suggest that there might be significant policy influences on volumes, prices, markets, employment, and agents’ behavior which should be taken into account when economically sound policies are to be designed.

Therefore, public data providers like the Universal Postal Union or Eurostat should harmonize and improve data collection and supply in order to achieve the goal of sound policy analysis and optimization. Even the operators should have an interest in the provision of such data in order to gain an even better understanding not only of their respective home market but on regulation and optimal strategies in regulated environment in general.