Working Paper 121
Tackling the journal crisis
ISBN: 90-5833-035-4
Maarten Cornet and Ben Vollaard
CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, Van Stolkweg 14, 2585 JR, The Hague, The Netherlands
When authors pay with money in stead of copyrights
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.
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This publication is one of a set of related publications about the economics of
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