Balkinization  

Friday, September 16, 2005

How much is that text book in the Window

Ian Ayres

In an oped I published in the New York Times today, I argue that there is an errie analogy between textbooks and prescription drugs:
In both cases you have doctors (Ph.D.'s or M.D.'s) prescribing products. In
neither case does the doctor pay for the product prescribed - in many cases, he
or she doesn't even know what it costs. And the clincher is that in both cases,
the manufacturers sell the same product at substantially reduced prices abroad.
I've received a blizzard of supportive email (even with regard to my suggestion that textbooks be included as part of tuition). But one of the most interesting comments suggested that school licensing of textbooks in inevitable because of the easy of "ripping textbooks" -- scanning textbooks into pdf format and posting them on napster sharing services. A truly scary prospect that publishers might respond to by selling per student licenses to schools.

By the way, I predict that a bunch of professors around the country who assign their books to their class are about to be asked "why don't you give us the Ayres rebate?" A milder question might be "Professor, do you know how much our text book cost (and are there any cheaper equivalent books)?"

Comments:

one of my grad students recently told me that econometric analysis, (by william h greene), which is probably the most frequently prescribed phd econometrics book and goes for >$100 i think, can be gotten for $10 in paperback at www.firstandsecond.com. this site is located in india and will ship.

it's a great deal.....if i didn't have a free desk copy, i'd buy one :-)
 

ps i'm glad you're pushing this issue. the prices are obSCENE, and as an econ prof i'd bet a lot that you've nailed the reason.
 

Most offensive when it comes to Law textbooks is that the vast majority of the texbook material is produced at no cost from the judiciary.
 

This is somewhat off-topic, but if you want to be outraged about the K-12 textbook market, try this article: http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1195&issue=nov_04

That market seems to have a very different set of problems. Perhaps care should be taken in proscribing the K-12-style solution for overpriced college textbooks.
 

I meant prescribing, of course, not proscribing, though I would endorse the typo-ed sentence as well.
 

It's always nice to see another great site about weight loss hypnosis so natrually I want to tell you about my site on weight loss hypnosis
 

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