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Textbooks are shown on the shelves of the campus bookstore of Missouri Western State University. A House bill called the ‘Textbook Transparency Act’ is meant to lower the cost of textbooks for college students.

A Missouri House bill intended to lower the cost of textbooks for Missouri college students could have the opposite effect. So says a commentary from the Show-Me Institute.

Referred to as the “Textbook Transparency Act,” the bill requires publishers to reveal the price of the textbook, what revisions have been made and if the materials are available in any other format to professors who request the information.

Dan Grana, who is going into his junior year as an economics major at Notre Dame, authored the piece published by the Show-Me Institute in late May. The institute is a Missouri-based think tank with a mission to “advance liberty with responsibility by promoting market solutions for Missouri public policy.”

Mr. Grana said the information required in the act is already available on the Internet or by asking a sales representative. However, “legally mandating this unnecessary condition would impose marginal sales burdens on bookstores and publishers,” he said in his commentary.

“Why would students want their professors to select textbooks based on price, anyway?” Mr. Grana asks. “Content is a much more important factor.”

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jake Zimmerman, D-Olivette, Mo., has a degree in economics and law degree from Harvard. He refers to the Show-Me Institute analysis as “over simplistic and flawed.”

“If you’ll pardon the expression,” Mr. Zimmerman said, “he’s taking a freshman year economics textbook approach to the problem, which does not accurately reflect the real world circumstances that we’re talking about.”

Mr. Zimmerman said the bill has gotten widespread support from student groups in Missouri and an endorsement from a national textbook organization. He said the commentary hasn’t drummed any public outcry since it was published.

The bill was delivered to the governor’s office on May 29, according to the Missouri state government’s Web site.

Jimmy Myers can be reached at jimmym@npgco.com.