An article in the New York Times (June 8, 2012) describes the Justice department’s settlement with publishers to eliminate “agency pricing” which was claimed to enable collusion among publishers for ebook prices. Under agency pricing, five publishers were allowed by Apple to set their ebook prices and pay Apple 30%. The publishers had claimed that this prevented Amazon.com from dropping prices to uncompetitive levels for ebooks, thus stressing hardcover sales. Would elimnation of agency prices raise consumer prices because the supply chain would be less coordinated ? Does Barnes & Noble prefer agency pricing because it would decrease Amazon’s pricing competitiveness ? If the Justice department’s ruling decreases retail prices to make it uncompetitive for writers’to participate, will the supply chain be worse off ?