La prohibición a los libreros de efectuar descuentos sobre el precio de solapa fijado por el editor se justifica por la necesidad de aumentar la oferta editorial. Garantizando un margen suficiente a los libreros - se dice - éstos tendrán incentivos para tener en la librería un surtido más amplio de libros y no solo los "best-sellers". Como es sabido, la venta de libros constituye uno de los negocios que más se ha desarrollado en Internet. Y el fenómeno que ha provocado es que han desaparecido las limitaciones de espacio: los libreros de internet como Amazon tienen unos almacenes en los que caben todos los libros del mundo. Y como todo el mundo - literalmente - puede acercarse a la librería de Amazon, éste tiene incentivos para tener gran cantidad de títulos en la seguridad que siempre habrá un grupo de compradores interesados si unimos a todos los lectores en una determinada lengua (es la historia del long tail). Así las cosas, tal vez fuera el momento de eliminar el precio fijo para los libros que sangra especialmente a los padres de alumnos de menor renta que se enfrentan al pago de cantidades desorbitadas cada vez que empieza un curso. Recuérdese que este es un sector en el que la competencia se desarrolla muy mal porque los que eligen los libros (los maestros o los directores de colegio) y los que los pagan (los padres) son distintos con lo que los primeros no tienen incentivos para elegir los más baratos. No se desarrolla, en consecuencia, competencia en torno al precio y, dado que se han de mantener los mismos libros para varios cursos académicos seguidos, la "captura" del cliente tiene mayor valor para las empresas editoras, de manera que tienen incentivos para gastar en tratar de convencer a maestros y directores de colegio para que elijan sus libros. Si a ello añadimos la intervención pública en lo que se refiere a los contenidos que han de tener los libros y la segmentación regional derivada de las competencias de las Comunidades Autónomas en educación, se comprende que exista muy poca competencia "intermarca" por lo que la competencia "intramarca" deviene la única que puede proteger a los consumidores.
En un reciente informe de la Office of Fair Trading británica en el que se analizan los efectos de eliminar el precio fijo para los libros en Gran Bretaña (precio fijo que no se aplicaba a los libros de texto) se lee
"As expected, the entry of the supermarkets and internet sellers entrants (now with a combined market share of more than 20 per cent) has made a positive contribution to industry productivity via the between firm effect. The exact magnitude of this effect is difficult to quantify in practice due to the absence of any hard and disaggregated estimates of their productivity in books alone (as opposed to for all products). However, on not unreasonable assumptions, this effect alone may have increased industry productivity by as much as a third in just five years (2001-05), but a more conservative estimate would be about 20 per cent"
Y, en cuanto a los efectos sobre los editores de libros
... publishers might suffer from abolition because retail price cutting would lead to reduced numbers of titles and more demand uncertainty and reluctance by retailers to hold large inventories. If so, one might expect a negative impact on within-firm productivity amongst publishers. In fact, our results do not suggest that this happened. Second, it was argued that, to the extent that publishers were using NBA to facilitate collusion, its abolition would increase the intensity of competition between publishers.7 In this case, one might expect significant within-firm productivity gains post-abolition. On this,... there is scope for some disagreement on the facts, depending which counterfactual one uses. On the basis of a comparison of the UK, pre and post-abolition, the evidence suggests no such effect. But, using Germany as a counterfactual, there is some evidence in favour of this possibility.
En un reciente informe de la Office of Fair Trading británica en el que se analizan los efectos de eliminar el precio fijo para los libros en Gran Bretaña (precio fijo que no se aplicaba a los libros de texto) se lee
"As expected, the entry of the supermarkets and internet sellers entrants (now with a combined market share of more than 20 per cent) has made a positive contribution to industry productivity via the between firm effect. The exact magnitude of this effect is difficult to quantify in practice due to the absence of any hard and disaggregated estimates of their productivity in books alone (as opposed to for all products). However, on not unreasonable assumptions, this effect alone may have increased industry productivity by as much as a third in just five years (2001-05), but a more conservative estimate would be about 20 per cent"
Y, en cuanto a los efectos sobre los editores de libros
... publishers might suffer from abolition because retail price cutting would lead to reduced numbers of titles and more demand uncertainty and reluctance by retailers to hold large inventories. If so, one might expect a negative impact on within-firm productivity amongst publishers. In fact, our results do not suggest that this happened. Second, it was argued that, to the extent that publishers were using NBA to facilitate collusion, its abolition would increase the intensity of competition between publishers.7 In this case, one might expect significant within-firm productivity gains post-abolition. On this,... there is scope for some disagreement on the facts, depending which counterfactual one uses. On the basis of a comparison of the UK, pre and post-abolition, the evidence suggests no such effect. But, using Germany as a counterfactual, there is some evidence in favour of this possibility.
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