Economics of Scholarly Publishing: Exploring the Causes of Subscription Price Variations of Scholarly Journals in Business Subject–Specific Areas

Abstract

This empirical research investigates subscription price variations of scholarly journals in five business subject–specific areas using the semilogarithmic regression model. It has two main purposes. The first is to address the unsettled debate over whether or not and to what extent commercial publishers reap monopoly profits by overcharging academic libraries for scholarly journals they subscribe to. The second is to provide librarians with scholarly journal price estimates and to test publication factors that affect journal prices. The subject-specific approach used in this study provides more accurate estimates for serial budgeting and management. The findings show that in all cases the coefficient of the commercial publisher variable is statistically significant at a very high level (p < .0001). In most cases, the coefficients of other observed variables are also significant, and scholarly journal prices vary significantly among the business subject-specific areas.