The economics of ecology journals

Ted C. Bergstrom, University of California, Santa Barbara
Carl T. Bergstrom, University of Washington

Abstract

Large commercial publishers charge dramatically higher prices to institutions than do non-profit publishers. These price differences do not reflect quality as measured by citation rate or pages. We discuss effect of prices and citations on number of library subscriptions and offer an explanation for why competition has not been able to erode the price difference between commercial and non profit journals.