The supplement is to rebut a recent critical study commissioned by the Australian Publishers Association (APA), written by economists Oswin Maurer and Markus Walzl (available here), which found flaws with the Commission's final report.
The APA said the release of the supplement showed the Productivity Commission was ‘increasingly desperate to defend its discredited price analysis'.
Calling the supplement a ‘highly unusual response', APA CEO Maree McCaskill pointed to its statements regarding price and the Commission's final recommendations.
The Commission stated: ‘While the Commission judged that removal of the PIRs would put downward pressure on book prices, the Commission's recommendation that the PIRs be repealed did not rely on that judgement, contrary to the claim in the [Maurer/Walzl] paper.'
‘That will be news to the public, who have been told over and over this is all about cheaper books,' said McCaskill.
The supplement can be found on the Productivity Commission website at http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/study/books.
