Re: The Medieval Postal Service

[Seiji S.C. Steimetz]

Any idea what the market price was (in real terms) for sending a package from Madrid to Constantinople?   Seiji __________________________________________________ Seiji Steimetz                                             Office: SST 311 Dept. of Economics                                      (949) 824-1390 University of California, Irvine 3151 Social Science Plaza                      [EMAIL PROTECTED] Irvine, CA 92697                        www.ags.uci.edu/~ssteimet   "We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows." - Robert Frost __________________________________________________ ----- Original Message ----- From: fabio guillermo rojas To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 3:10 PM Subject: The Medieval Postal Service Last summer, I argued with a friend over the privatization of the postal service. He said that the postal service already did a good job as one could ask for. A bystander opined that without market forces, how could one really know if a job was done efficiently or not? With the postal service, I now have an a partial answer. I was reading a Menand's history of the Mediterranean in the 1400's. He caclulated that it took about two weeks, during good weather and peaceful times, for a package to move from Madrid to Constantinople. Not bad. The current postal service offers first class packages in about 7-10 working days. CDnow routinely tells customers 14 days is to be expected. Interesting. -fabio