| Abstract : | Because of its special characteristics, book markets in many countries are often regulated in order to restrict price competition and achieve some cultural objectives through a resale price maintenance mechanism. In 2014 the law that regulated the Greek book market was modified and non-literature books were excluded. Thereafter, publishers no longer fix the retail price of books and booksellers are free to offer discounts at their own discretion.This analysis uses yearly data on the prices of a sample of non-literature books in an attempt to evaluate the impact that the deregulation of the book market had on retail prices. In order to circumvent the problem of the simultaneous effect on prices of deregulation, recession and depreciation we apply an algebraic decomposition to the total decrease and get the clear effect of deregulation.Our results indicate that deregulation led to a modest decrease in average prices due to the fact that not every retailer has responded to the liberalization of the non-literature book market with price cuts. However, by examining the average discounts of each retailer separately, it comes with no surprise that the limited response to price competition was from retailers who have differentiated themselves by offering quality services or the advantage of convenience. The rest of the retailers seem to have responded to the ability to offer discounts, rendering the clear effect of deregulation rather substantial. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the book market and why regulation might be considered necessary. Chapter 2 introduces the practice of resale price maintenance and its extensions to the book market. Chapter 3 offers an overview on the fixed book price system in Europe and an extended presentation of the effects of its abolition in the UK. Chapter 4 offers an overview of the Greek book market. Chapter 5 describes the data used in our analysis. Chapter 6 describes the analysis we undertake in order to calculate the net effect of deregulation. Chapter 7 describes the main results of the analysis.Chapter 8 offers the conclusion and some general remarks.
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