Tullock and Textbooks

I'm sure we have all been annoyed by the ridiculous amounts of money we have to pay for textbooks at the beginning of each semester. While reading about the college textbook industry, I realized that it presented a situation very similar to the monopoly seeking behavior discussed by Tullock in the paper we read for last week's class. Although there are multiple publishers who compete with each other in the large textbook industry, courses that require a textbook usually do not allow students to buy just any textbook on the subject. Rather, they require every student in the class to purchase a specific book. In this way, Professors are able to award their chosen textbook publisher the right to a monopoly over the books for each class they teach.

As a result, textbook publishers spend resources to receive that right from professors just as Tullock predicted they would. In the textbook industry this is done through the employment of textbook representatives. These representatives attempt to get professors to choose their books by forming relationships with them, sending them information regarding the products they offer, and sometimes buying them food. The companies are paying their representatives in order to have the best chance at being awarded this monopolistic opportunity. These representatives are very reminiscent of lobbyists in Washington and are a good example of the monopoly seeking behavior Tullock discussed in his paper.