Title:	PRICING OF DIGITAL SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION
Author(s):	Andreas W. Neumann
ISBN:	978-972-8924-35-5
Editors:	Piet Kommers (series editors: Piet Kommers, Pedro Isaías and Nian-Shing Chen)
Year:	2007
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Price elasticity, digital scientific information, information market
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	105
Last Page:	112
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	Most of today’s supply of digital scientific information is paid for by either institutional flat rates via site license schemes or pay-per-view to individual customers. Fee-based digital document delivery services are another way to access the key resource of modern information societies. Analyzing existing and potential pricing schemes of the different paths to information reveals huge price differences for comparable goods. Uncertainty about the best price to charge seems to be ubiquitous. The main part of the paper presents the sales data analysis of a digital document delivery service to the student community at the library of the Universität Karlsruhe (TH). Journal articles that are not available digitally through an institutional flat rate can be ordered to be scanned manually by the library staff and downloaded digitally later. The service was introduced especially for this experiment. Prices were varied between 0.30 and 2.80 Euro to measure the price-demand curve; the customers were not informed about the experiment. The dataset consists of 2520 sales to 641 different customers in the years 2002 to 2006. The price elasticity of demand is a linear function already at low prices. Nonlinear price-demand effects for very low prices and prices near a prohibitive price of 5.00 Euro are discussed. Conclusions for optimal pricing in information markets are drawn with impacts on scientific education and digitization efforts of paper books and journals.
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