Who Should Set Book Prices?

Silvi Berger and Morten Hviid
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Silvi Berger: Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia

No 2019-07, Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) from Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: The key question for this paper is by whom and with what restrictions the price of books should be set. In the past, public cultural policy has in some jurisdictions favoured limiting competition at the retail level by mandating a fixed book price system, where prices are the same everywhere. Digitalisation has enabled some competition authorities to challenge this practice. This has left us with a situation where very different rules apply to the book market in different jurisdictions and where the initial question of who sets prices faced with what restrictions is given a very different answer across EU member states. This paper uses recent antitrust cases to highlight the tension over who should have the price setting power in the market for books.

Keywords: Retail Price MFN; Across Platform Parity Agreements; price guarantees; agency models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 D4 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-cul and nep-ore
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uea:ueaccp:2019_07

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