An Auction Market for Journal Articles

Jens Prüfer (Tilburg University)
David Zetland (University of California, Davis)

Abstract: Economic articles are published very slowly. We recommend that an auction market replace the current system for submitting papers and show a strict Pareto-improvement of equilibrium. Besides the benefits of speed, this mechanism increases the average quality of articles and journals and rewards editors and referees for their effort. In addition, the "academic dollars" for papers sold at auction go to the authors, editors and referees of cited articles. This nonpecuniary income indicates academic impact - facilitating decisions on tenure and promotion. We discuss practical issues and demonstrate that the auction market is implementable without relaxing current pecuniary or time constraints.


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