Traditional versus Open Access Scholarly Journal Publishing: An Economic Perspective

The debate surrounding open access journal publishing is part of a broader debate related to the electronic dissemination of information. Compared to print journals, electronic journals have lower publishing costs and allow for expanded access to scholarly research. However, open access publishing introduces an added cost of evaluating an ever-increasing number of published sources and the potential for misinformation. This paper analyses the traditional and open access scholarly publishing models from an economic perspective. Analysing the alternative market structures of these models can help to identify strategies to maximize net benefits in the scholarly publishing market.