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:
“The price we pay for the complexity of life is too high. When you think of all the effort you have to put in—telephonic, technological and relational—to alter even the slightest bit of behaviour in this strange world we call social life, you are left pining for the straightforwardness of primitive peoples and their physical work.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“A book is like a man—clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)