Ill Sell It to You at Cost Legal Methods to Promote Retail.pdf

Yale Law School Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository Fa ulty Scholarship Series Yale Law School Fa ulty Scholarship 1-1-1990 Ill Sell It to You at Cost: Legal Methods to Promote Retail Markup Disclosure Ian Ayres Yale Law School Follow this and additional works at : http://digital /fss_papers Part of the Law Commons Re ommended Citation Ayres, Ian, Ill Sell It to You at Cost: Legal Methods to Promote Retail Markup Disclosure (1990). Faculty Sc holarship Series. Paper 1542. http://digital /fss_papers/1542 This Article is brought to you for free and open a ess by the Yale Law School Fa ulty Scholarship at Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. It has been a epted for inclusion in Fa ulty Scholarship Series by an authorized administrator of Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. For more information, please ontact julian.aiken@. Copyright 1990 by Northwestern University, School ofLaw Printed in USA. Northwestern University Law Review Vol. 84, Nos. 3 4 LEGAL THEORY ILL SELL IT TO YOU AT COST: LEGAL METHODS TO PROMOTE RETAIL MARKUP DISCLOSURE Ian Ayres* and F. ClaytonMiller** In todays marketplace, retailers provide consumers with a wealth of information about the prices, qualities, and uses of their products. Con- spicuously absent, however, is information about the retailers cost or markup.1 Retail sellers are generally unwilling to tell a buyer the whole- sale cost of the goods they sell. To be sure, there are counter-exa