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Economic Modelling of Predatory Journal Publishing

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Abstract

This article applies an economic model to analyze the supply and demand relationship of predatory journal publishing. It uses the quantity of journals and articles as the supply index and the number of researchers as the demand index, attempting to examine how the changes in their condition will influence an economic equilibrium. Instead of using price as the determinant of market balance, the article highlights the quality of publications as the measure. It suggests that an increase in open access journal publishing has overtaken the growth of researcher population worldwide. Particularly, the rapid and massive development of predatory journals, those that lack peer review but charge for article processing fees, has resulted in a decline in publication quality.

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(Source: UNESCO http://data.uis.unesco.org/#)

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(Data source: Shen and Björk, 2015, Fig. 3 [10])

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  1. East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, 160 Smith Street, East Stroudsburg, PA, 18301, USA

    Jingfeng Xia

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Xia, J. Economic Modelling of Predatory Journal Publishing. Pub Res Q 35, 377–390 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-019-09661-9

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