The McGraw-Hill Cengage Learning merger — and the perils of dog food marketing

The McGraw-Hill Cengage Learning merger — and the perils of dog food marketing

Two competing textbook publishers, McGraw-Hill and Cengage Learning, have proposed to merge. Reducing competition in markets fueled by predatory pricing is a bad idea. But why are textbooks so expensive? When I worked in the textbook publishing industry, the CEO of my startup publisher told me that what we did was “dog food marketing.” When…