A Two-Sided, Empirical Model of the Submission and Subscription Markets for Economics Journals

Abstract

We develop and estimate a two-sided model for the market for economics journals. In this model an economics journal faces demand from authors for its scarce space and demand from library and individual subscribers for access to its content, and thereby chooses its manuscript submission fee, subscription fees, and pages of content to compete against each other. We examine how the price allocation between the author and subscriber sides is affected by the relative size of cross-group network externalities, i.e., authors’ valuation of the number of subscribers and vice versa, and by platform governance (for-profit vs. non-profit), among other things.

Keywords: Circulation, economics journals, impact factor, library subscription, network effect, submission fee, two-sided market

JEL Classification: L11, L82, C21