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The Changing Economics of Academic Journals

The Changing Economics of Academic Journals. Ted Bergstrom. University of California Santa Barbara. Ted Bergstrom University of California Santa Barbara. Outline of talk . Trends in prices and numbers of journals Self-archiving Costs and Citations. A curious market structure .

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The Changing Economics of Academic Journals

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  1. The Changing Economics of Academic Journals Ted Bergstrom

  2. University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara Ted Bergstrom University of California Santa Barbara

  3. Outline of talk • Trends in prices and numbers of journals • Self-archiving • Costs and Citations

  4. A curious market structure • Private profit-maximizing firms and non-profit publishers are both significant players. • Most of the workforce--authors and referees--work for free.

  5. A bit of history • In 1960 there were ~30 econ journals, all non-profit, all cheap. • In 1980,~120 econ journals, half for-profit, half non-profit. • In 2004,~330 econ journals, 2/3 for-profit. • Between 1985 and 2000, top ten for-profits almost doubled their pages, top ten non-profits increased ~20%.

  6. Journals by Publisher: 2004

  7. Price per Recent Cite in 2004

  8. Cost and benefit shares for a complete economics collection in 2004

  9. Prices are Deflated to Constant Dollars

  10. Has Elsevier turned over a new leaf? • Librarians have noted that % increases in price per page was lower for Elsevier than for others, including non-profits. • What is going on?

  11. Percent and Absolute

  12. How often do economists self-archive? • Studies show that papers posted for free on the web tend to be cited more often than those that are not. • Many readers do not have access to subscribed publisher provided copies. • Small universities, private sector, and third world countries.

  13. Most authors want their papers to be read. • Labor economists show strong effect of citations on salaries. • Professional influence depends not only on citations, but on downloads, presence on course reading lists, and on correspondence with online readers.

  14. Our study • We took a sample of 25 economics journals and looked at the table of contents of the two most recent issues—total of 545 articles. • We used Google to search for a free online copy of each article (same title, same author(s))

  15. Results • About 73% of articles are available. • Much higher percentage of self-archiving for major journals than for minor journals.

  16. 100 percent posted: • J Political Economy • Quarterly J Econ • J Financial Econ • Review Econ Studies • More than 80 percent posted: • Economica • J Finance • J Econometrics • J Public Econ • Am Econ Rev • J Econ Theory • J Monetary Econ

  17. 60-75 percent posted: • European Ec Review • Int J Game Theory • J Labor Econ • Economic Journal • Kyklos • Less than 50 percent posted: • Public Choice • Ec Inquiry • Public Finance Rev • Resource & Energy Ec • Theory & Decision • Ecological Econ • Health Econ

  18. Regression of Journal characteristics on Probability of Self-Archiving

  19. A Small Paradox • Authors of papers in top journals are more likely to self-archive • This is paradoxical, since top journals are more widely available. • If you publish in an obscure journal, you need to self-archive to be widely read.

  20. Some Advice • If you don’t currently post your articles online—old and new, published or unpublished, it is in your interest to do so. • It is legal. It is easy. It is becoming the norm.

  21. Implications • With free access to most articles available, value to faculty of high-priced subscription is much reduced. • This should increase price elasticity of demand and exert downward pressure on prices.

  22. Prices of Leading Journals

  23. Why subscribe? • Ensure that you have final version. • Convenience and certainty of search. • How much is this worth for a single library? • Enough to allow non-profits to maintain current high prices? ~$30 per article • Enough to sustain prices of major non-profits? $2-$10 per article

  24. Rewards to shopping • The froth is not worth much. • If you set cost per citation as criterion, you can get • 50% of cites for 10% of total cost • 80% of cites for 30% • 90% for 50%

  25. For Entire JCR • 6800 Journals from Bergstrom-Mcafee dataset • 65% of cites for 10% of cost • 92% of cites for 50% of cost • 95% of cites for 60% of cost

  26. Data on Journal citations and articles • Preston McAfee and I maintain an online database of cost-effectiveness of about 6,000 academic journals at http://www.journalprices.com/ • We are happy to share more detailed information with libraries that want to use this for value-based shopping.

  27. Other changes • Electronic site licenses. • Bundling of Journals. • Price Discrimination and secret negotiated price agreements. • Sales to consortia of libraries.

  28. Want more? www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb …papers, statistics, weasel’s manual, etc

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