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Books, Economics of

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Abstract

The tensions between books as expressions of culture and books as profitable products are analysed using insights from the theory of industrial organization. To stimulate the diversity of books on offer, maintain the density of bookshops and to promote reading, governments grant fixed price monopolies, subsidize authors, levy a lower consumption tax on books, and provide public libraries and education. Market structures and government policies vary widely and there is no case for harmonizing European book policies. The book market is innovative in solving its problems. The main task of the government is to promote reading.

The authors would like to acknowledge that much of this article is based on Canoy et al. (2006), which also contains more details on the stylized facts and references

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. http://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5

    Frederick van der Ploeg, Marcel Canoy & Jan van Ours

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  1. Frederick van der Ploeg
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  2. Marcel Canoy
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  3. Jan van Ours
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van der Ploeg, F., Canoy, M., van Ours, J. (2018). Books, Economics of. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2272

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