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The "cost of doing business" -- actually, what you're looking at is the cost of goods sold -- is lower for the ebook than for the equivalent pbook.
Both of them start from the same source: a manuscript from an author, either on paper (does anyone still write on paper?) or in electronic form. Once the publisher has the manuscript, it has to be edited, formatted, etc., to prepare it for publication. Once that is done, the following costs exist:
For the pbook:
printing
shipping
warehousing
distribution
returns
For the ebook:
any needed format changes (probably automated via software)
Pbooks can have 50% returns -- that is, half of the books that the publisher has paid to print, store, and ship to bookstores can turn around and come right back, garnering a full refund for the distributor and retailer, and ending up either remaindered or sent to the recyclers. So for every pbook they sell, the publisher may have to pay the full production cost, from press setup to disposal, for two such books.
For an ebook ... a little bandwidth. Zero returns.
Further, there's the distributor and retailer discounts. I'm not sure what they are in the publishing industry. Back when I was involved in the paper-and-pencil game industry, the distributors commonly paid 40% of cover price on a product, selling it to the retailers for 50% or 60% of cover. If something of the kind holds true in book publishing, the publisher is getting 40% of the cover price of a pbook, and (with "agency" pricing) 70% of the cover price of an ebook.
So if the ebook and the pbook both sell for $10.00 each (and the discount level is comparable to the RPG industry), the publisher gets $4 for the pbook (from which they have to cover the expenses of producing and physically shipping about at least one, possibly two, such books ... more if it tanks) while they get $7 for the ebook, with no other expenses.
In short ... the publishers are price-gouging.
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