Site licensing of e-journals has been revolutionizing the way academic information is distributed. However, many librarians are concerned about the possibility that publishers might abuse site licensing by practicing bundling. In this paper, we analyze how bundling affects journal pricing in the context of STM electronic journal market and offer a novel insight on the bundling of a large number of information goods. We find that (i) when bundling is prohibited, surprisingly, market structure does not affect prices (ii) when bundling is allowed, each publisher finds bundling optimal and bundling increases the industry profit while reducing social welfare and (iii) any asymmetry-increasing merger is profitable but reduces social welfare
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)