In economics, a price book is a book in which the normal prices of an item are listed for all suppliers. This allows one to determine the lowest price possible.
If a group of suppliers adhere to a particular price book, in other words, they set the prices of the price book artificially higher than the market clearing price, then they are "fixing the price" of that item. This is illegal in most countries and is often found in oligopolies (industries with a few competitors (2-8), but not enough to make it a perfect market).
Famous quotes containing the words price and/or book:
“To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.... A message from the gods should be delivered at once. It is damnably blasphemous to talk about the autumn season and so on. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honourable to which a man can be called?”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“The book borrower of real stature whom we envisage here proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures and by the deaf ear which he turns to all reminders from the everyday world of legality as by his failure to read these books.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)