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A Textbook Example of International Price Discrimination

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Author Info
Christos Cabolis
Sofronis Clerides
Ioannis Ioannou
Daniel Senft

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Abstract

We investigate differences in book prices between the United States and other countries. We find that general audience books are similarly priced internationally, but textbooks are substantially more expensive in the United States (often more than double the price). This disparity is much more pronounced for commercial publishers than for university presses. We argue that supply-side factors like cost and market structure can not explain this phenomenon. We discuss several demand-side explanations; our preferred theory is that higher US textbook prices reflect the unique status of the textbook as a centerpiece of US college instruction.

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File URL: http://papers.econ.ucy.ac.cy/RePEc/papers/3-2005.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Cyprus Department of Economics in its series University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics with number 3-2005.

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Length: 18 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2005
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Handle: RePEc:ucy:cypeua:3-2005

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Web page: http://www.econ.ucy.ac.cy

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Related research
Keywords: international price discrimination; book industry; textbooks;

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  1. Siegfried, John J. & Latta, Christopher, 1998. "Competition in the Retail College Textbook Market," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 105-115, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Engel, Charles, 1993. "Real exchange rates and relative prices : An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 35-50, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Clay, Karen, et al, 2002. "Retail Strategies on the Web: Price and Non-price Competition in the Online Book Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(3), pages 351-67, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. David Laband & John Hudson, 2003. "The Pricing of Economics Books," Journal of Economic Education, Helen Dwight Reid Foundation, vol. 34(4), pages 360-368. [Downloadable!]
  5. Matthias Lutz, 2004. "Pricing in Segmented Markets, Arbitrage Barriers, and the Law of One Price: Evidence from the European Car Market," Review of International Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 12(3), pages 456-475, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Shepard, Andrea, 1991. "Price Discrimination and Retail Configuration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 30-53, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 1996. "How Wide Is the Border?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1112-25, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Judith Chevalier & Austan Goolsbee, 2005. "Are Durable Goods Consumers Forward Looking? Evidence from College Textbooks," NBER Working Papers 11421, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Andrew Cohen, 2004. "Identifying price discrimination when product menus are endogenous," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-10, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  10. Danzon, Patricia M. & Chao, Li-Wei, 2000. "Cross-national price differences for pharmaceuticals: how large, and why?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 159-195, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Karen Clay & Ramayya Krishnan & Eric Wolff, 2001. "Prices and Price Dispersion on the Web: Evidence from the Online Book Industry," NBER Working Papers 8271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Haskel, Jonathan & Wolf, Holger, 2001. " The Law of One Price--A Case Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 103(4), pages 545-58, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Kenneth Rogoff, 1996. "The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 647-668, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Clerides, Sofronis K., 2002. "Book value: intertemporal pricing and quality discrimination in the US market for books," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(10), pages 1385-1408, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Bulow, Jeremy, 1986. "An Economic Theory of Planned Obsolescence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 729-49, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Murray, Christian J. & Papell, David H., 2005. "Do Panels Help Solve the Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 410-415, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Austan Goolsbee & Judith Chevalier, 2002. "Measuring Prices and Price Competition Online: Amazon and Barnes and Noble," NBER Working Papers 9085, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Mario J. Crucini & Chris I. Telmer & Marios Zachariadis, 2005. "Understanding European Real Exchange Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 724-738, June. [Downloadable!]
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  19. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Rose, Andrew K., 1996. "A panel project on purchasing power parity: Mean reversion within and between countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-2), pages 209-224, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Parsley, David C. & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2001. "Explaining the border effect: the role of exchange rate variability, shipping costs, and geography," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 87-105, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Frank Verboven, 1996. "International Price Discrimination in the European Car Market," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(2), pages 240-268, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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