Monopoly power in the eighteenth-century British book trade

Some authors have argued that reform of British copyright law during the eighteenth century broke the Stationers’ Company monopoly over the English book trade, and the resulting competition was a driving force behind the expansion of British book production during the enlightenment. We analyse a new dataset on eighteenth-century book prices and author payments, showing that the legal changes were associated with no reduction in prices and only a temporary increase in payments to authors. Other economic factors led to a gradual reduction in the booksellers’ mark-ups, but there is no evidence that the legal reforms diminished their monopoly power.