Demand Distribution Dynamics in Creative Industries: the Market for Books in Italy

Abstract

We study the distribution dynamics of the demand for books in Italy. We find that for each of three broad sub-markets in which the book publishing industry can be classified Italian novels, foreign novels and essays 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.