Abstract: More and more academic journals adopt an open-acces polcy, by which articles are accessible free of charge through the Internet, while publication costs are recovered through author-fees. We study the consequences of this policy on the journal's quality standards. We show that if the journal is run by a not-for-profit association that aims at maximizing the utility of its members, the move to open-access may result in a decrease of quality standards below the socially efficient level.
From the conclusion:
Although we were not able to prove this result in full generality, we have established it for a reasonably large class of distribution functions. The basic intuition behind it is simple: if the association is controlled by the readers of the journal, it does not internalize the cost of the publication, which is covered by authors. As long as those authors are not budget constrained, the association will choose to publish too many articles.
Comment. The paper is highly mathematical and I have trouble putting my finger on what the authors think causes the alleged decrease in quality. I can't criticize the authors for addressing an audience of economists, but the rest of us could use some translation. First, note that the conclusion only applies to OA journals that charge author-side fees and that the majority of OA journals charge no such fees at all. Second, note that it only applies to journals published by non-profits, or at least those non-profits trying to maximize utility for their readers (association members). Among other things, I can't figure out why preserving quality isn't an obvious part of the journal's method of maximizing utility for readers. Do the authors assume that journals trying to maximize utility for readers put quantity ahead of quality? If so, why?
Update. A newer version of this paper, dated June 21, 2007, is now online. If this is the published edition, it doesn't mention the journal in which it was published.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/03/2006 02:05:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
