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Discussion Papers
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research

Optimal Pricing and Quality of Academic Journals and the Ambiguous Welfare Effects of Forced Open Access: A Two-Sided Model

Mueller-Langer, Frank; Watt, Richard (2012). Optimal Pricing and Quality of Academic Journals and the Ambiguous Welfare Effects of Forced Open Access: A Two-Sided ModelTILEC Discussion Paper DP 2012-019.

We analyze optimal pricing and quality of a monopolistic journal and the optimality of open access in a two-sided model. The predominant aspect of the model that determines the quality levels at which open access is optimal is the nature of the relationship between readers and authors in a journal. In contrast to previous literature, we firstly show that there exist scenarios in which open access is a feature of high-quality journals. Second, we find that removal of copyright (and thus forced open access) decreases journal profits but has ambiguous social welfare effects.

Available at SSRN

Published in: Managerial and Decision Economics Volume 42, Issue 8, Special Issue: Economic Perspectives on the Future of Academic Publishing, December 2021, Pages 1945-1959