Tackling the journal crisis; when authors pay with money instead of copyrights

CPB Working Paper 121 | 1‑02‑2000

There is a crisis in scientific publishing. The most pressing problem is the reduced access to scientific knowledge, caused by ever-rising prices for journals and limited library budgets.

The journal crisis is a logical result of the current set-up of the market. Publishers who obtain copyrights on high-quality papers (their most important input) are able to charge monopoly prices, since papers are not interchangeable like jars of peanut butter. Recent changes in ICT enable a reform of this market setup. If the government wants to fundamentally tackle the journal crisis it could target policy at the limitation of access: publishers' copyrights on scientific papers. When copyrights are made ineffective by placing them in the hands of an independent institute, and authors pay publishers with money instead of copyrights, a competitive system of scientific publishing and free access to scientific papers can result.