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Price Elasticities for Hardcover and Paperback Fiction Books

  • Price Elasticities
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Schmalenbach Business Review Aims and scope

Abstract

Book pricing is problematic for two main reasons. First, because legal restrictions make pricing decisions irreversible. Second, because publishers must set prices for many books every year. Therefore, a sound knowledge of consumer reaction to price is essential for good pricing decisions. Our research examines consumer reactions to prices, provides price elasticities based on a large sample of fiction books, and creates a comprehensive set of quality measures and control variables. Our results show that once price endogeneity is considered, consumers are price elastic. Moreover, we find that the price elasticity for hardcover books is substantially smaller than for paperbacks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kühne Logistics University, Großer Grasbrook 17, 20457, Hamburg, Germany

    Christian Barrot & Jan U. Becker

  2. Institute of Marketing & Research Center for Media & Communication, University of Hamburg, Welckerstraße 8, 20354, Hamburg, Germany

    Michel Clement

  3. Department of Marketing, University of Tübingen, Nauklerstraße 47, 72074, Tübingen, Germany

    Dominik Papies

Authors
  1. Christian Barrot
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  2. Jan U. Becker
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  3. Michel Clement
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  4. Dominik Papies
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michel Clement.

Additional information

The authors thank two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. The order of authors is alphabetical.

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Barrot, C., Becker, J.U., Clement, M. et al. Price Elasticities for Hardcover and Paperback Fiction Books. Schmalenbach Bus Rev 67, 73–91 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03396924

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