2017/01/02 by Jason Potts, John Hartley, Lucy Montgomery +2 · 1 voice · 3 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Decision Sciences · #Business Strategy and Innovation #Economic Theory and Institutions #Game Theory and Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/08109028.2017.1386949
openalex publication_date 2017/01/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Abstract A new economic model for the analysis of scholarly publishing – journal publishing in particular – is proposed that draws on club theory. The standard approach builds on market failure in the private production (by research scholars) of a public good (new scholarly knowledge). In this model, publishing is communication, as the dissemination of information. But a club model views publishing differently: namely as group formation, where members form groups in order to confer externalities on each other, subject to congestion. A journal is a self-constituted group, endeavouring to create new knowledge. In this sense, a journal is a club. The knowledge club model of a journal seeks to balance the positive externalities of a shared resource (readers, citations, referees) against the negative externalities of crowding (decreased prospect of publishing in that journal). A new economic model of a journal as a knowledge club is elaborated. We suggest some consequences for the management of journals and financial models that might be developed to support them.