Pricing and Cost of Electronic Journals

Ted Bergstrom, University of California, Santa Barbara

Abstract

Here are two comments published by the JEP on my 2001 journals paper my response.

One comment was from Joop Dirkmaat of Reed-Elsevier who maintains that

"Bergstrom's essay is based on an outdated print-based view of the publishing industry," and doesn't take account of the high

costs of dual publication, electronic and paper.

I show that the pattern of pricing that we saw with paper journals has reemerged with electronic site licenses. Commercial publishers continue to charge prices far above average cost and far above the prices charged by

the no profits. Electronic site licenses for universities are priced at about 6 times as much per page for the 10 most-cited commercial journals (all of which are now owned by Elsevier) as for the 10 most-cited non-profit journals.