Has the Covid Pandemic Accelerated the Rate of Decline in Business Letters? Some Early and Preliminary Analysis and Thoughts

The Covid-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on society and has led to the worst UK recession in modern times. Many public commentators and individuals believe that many of the old rules and habits that applied to people and business pre-Covid will be swept away as we move into a new normal environment. This chapter examines this question with respect to the demand for Commercial (mainly transactional) letter mail. In particular, we extend and advance the time series analysis and econometric modelling for UK Commercial mail reported in Veruete-McKay et al. (2011) to cover the period up to and including financial year 2018/19. The updated model is then used to provide an assessment of its forecast properties outside of the sample period including a preliminary assessment of its performance during the initial phase of the pandemic.