Optimal pricing and quality of academic journals and the ambiguous welfare effects of forced open access: a two-sided model

We analyse optimal pricing and quality of a monopolistic journal and the optimality of open access in a two-sided model. The predominant aspect of the model that determines the quality levels at which open access is optimal is the nature of the relationship between readers and authors in a journal. In contrast to previous literature, we firstly show that there exist scenarios in which open access is a feature of high-quality journals. Second, we find that removal of copyright (and thus forced open access) decreases journal profits but has ambiguous social welfare effects.