A student of mine just handed me an Oct. 21, 2003 New York Times article about how to save money on textbook purchases by buying reimported books. For the time being at least, purchasing textbooks through Amazon.co.uk instead of Amazon.com can cut the price very significantly. For example, “Macroeconomics” by Stephen Williamson is $114 on the latter site, but $71.78 on the former.
“Just like prescription drugs, textbooks cost far less overseas than they do in the United States. The publishing industry defends its pricing policies, saying that foreign sales would be impossible if book prices were not pegged to local market conditions.... Relations between textbook publishers and college booksellers have been seriously roiled by the issue.”
