Resale Price Maintenance On Book Pricing

There are two methods for book pricing:prices set through free and resale price maintenance.Different countries use different methods.Such as,the America sets the book price though free,the publishers don't decide the book price, the book price is made by the booksellers freely.In other countries,such as Finland,Denmark,Australia set the book price freely. However, Germany sets book price through resale price maintenance(RPM),the price has been put on the book before it been sold,the bookseller has to sell the book according to the fixed price.Moreover some countries go through different price making methods.At beginning France used recommended price,booksellers sold the book according to the price that publishers suggested.Then they set book price though free,but this method made the France book market into trouble.Therefore the France abolished this system,and maintenance the resale book price at last.The Britain's police about book pricing also has changed.In the face of book market chaos,after a long time of arguement the Britain use RPM,but this system had been argued all the time. Though more than one century the RPM had been abolished by the Restrictive Practices Court in 1997.This thesis study why book use different pricing methods from other common good.Another question is why different countries use different pricing method,that is why there are so many arguments in the practice about RPM.There are some methods to analyse this problem.First,we exert document analysis to have a general idea about RPM.Then we analyse the transverse effect and longitudinal effect of the RPM though the methods of mathematical physics. At last we analyse the case of the Britain book pricing system to have a forward study.The paper have four parts to illustrate the RPM.First,we introduce the key question,then sort out the reference materials to understand the study for the question. Second,analyse the economics means of the RPM.we introduce what is RPM and its duel effect.Because of the duel effect we should analyse the RPM effect on book.Third, we would introduce the Britain book pricing system.That includes the evolution of pricing method,the reason of the abolish of the RPM.Furthermore we analyse the evolution though Institutional Economics method,reveal the resource of the evolution, the evolution mode,and time lag during the system evolution.In the last part we study the situation after the abolish of the Britain book RPM.We collect the Britain book market data,and use these data to show that after the abolish of the book RPM the book market not to be influenced seriously.The book market are running favorable.The number of book publishers and booksellers is increase,the welfare of publishers and booksellers is also increase,but the consumer welfare is not clear,so the totality welfare is not clear too,we need to take into account many factors.Then we have a conclusion for the paper.The meaning of the paper is to analyse the economics means of book as a specious good,this is also the innovation of the paper.Although there are so much study about the RPM,the study about a particular good is few.The most study on book pricing syster is to compare the pricing method in different countries,otherwise study one country pricing method though quantitative analysis. We try to make theoretical analysis about book RPM.There would be some deficiencies about my analysis.We need make further study.