Increases in the prices of scholarly journals have exceeded the general rate of
inflation for the last decade and more. In the face of this "serials crisis," libraries have
found it increasingly difficult to maintain essential journal collections. This thesis
investigates the causes of the serials crisis in biology using data generated for a study
conducted by the Mann Library of Cornell University for 1988 and 1994 and updated
by the author for 2001.
The major goals of this thesis are to elaborate some alternative explanations of
the crisis, identify econometrically the chief determinants of biology journal prices,
and test the theory that prices are significantly determined by market structure.
Existing literature sheds some light on price determinants specifically, technical
characteristics (including frequency and size), publisher's legal form (profit vs. non-profit),
location (domestic or foreign) and scale (circulation) have been found to be
statistically significant--but this work is incomplete and sometimes contradictory.
OLS and GLS regression analysis conducted in this thesis confirms that the
determinants of biology journal prices are country of origin, journal size and
frequency, circulation, and publisher's legal form. There is no evidence, however, that
greater concentration increases prices. According to this analysis, monopoly power is
not a problem in biology journal publishing. / Graduation date: 2003
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/30121 |
| Date | 06 September 2002 |
| Creators | Phillips, Irina |
| Contributors | Farrell, John P. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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