Low acceptance rates, commercial publishing, and the future of scholarly communication

John Conley

No 13-00008, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers from Vanderbilt University Department of Economics

Abstract: This letter calls attention a recent trend in economics publishing that seems to have slipped under the radar: large increases in submissions rates across a wide range of economics journals and steeply declining acceptance rates as a consequence. It is argued that this is bad for scholarly communication, bad for economics as a science, and imposes significant and wasteful costs on editors, referees, authors, and especially young people trying to establish themselves in the profession. It is further argued that the new “Big Deal” business model used by commercial publishers is primarily responsible for this situation. Finally it is argued that this represents a compelling reason to take advantage of new technologies to take control of certifying and distributing research away from commercial publishers and return it to scholarly community.

Keywords: Publishing; Scholarly Communication; Open Access; Big Deal; Fractional Reserve; Money (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A0 A1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-05-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sog
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Related works:
Journal Article: Low acceptance rates, commercial publishing, and the future of scholarly communication (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:van:wpaper:vuecon-sub-13-00008

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