We studied the distribution dynamics of the demand for books in Italy. We found that for each of the three broad sub-markets into which the book publishing industry can be classified - Italian novels, foreign novels and non-fiction - sales over a three-year sample can be adequately fitted by a power law distribution. Our results can be plausibly interpreted in terms of a model of interactions among buyers exchanging information on the books they buy.Book publishing industry; Information transmission; Power law distribution

Antonello E. Scorci

Edoardo Gaffeo

Laura Vici

Research Papers in Economics

English

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