ZEW President in Favour of More Competition on the Book Market

In his role as chair of the German Monopolies Commission, Professor Achim Wambach, president of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), has spoken out against the fixed book pricing under German law which requires publishers to set a fixed retail price for the books they sell. According to Professor Wambach, this constitutes a serious market intervention that is preventing fair competition.

“The actual effect of fixed book pricing is ambivalent and in some cases unclear and, in these times of advancing digitalisation, is more of a hindrance than an effective means of protecting the cultural value of books. Fixed book pricing is not protecting stationary book sales from the current structural changes in favour of online book sales. Rather, this law is fuelling competition over ancillary services, which only makes the market less transparent for consumers.

Free price competition, meanwhile, would contribute to the creation and diffusion of efficient retail structures and sales concepts. This could lead to new customer groups opening up and cost benefits being passed on in the form of lower retail prices.

Fixed book pricing represents a serious market intervention and should be scrapped.”