From the inbox:
Job Openings for Economists has been published only electronically for the past decade. Starting with the August 2011 issue, the Association will resume publishing JOE in print format, in order to ensure compliance with Department of Labor regulations for obtaining work visas for non-citizen economists. Print issues will be distributed via the U.S. Postal System two to three weeks after they are published electronically. Annual subscriptions will run from August through the following June of each year, and are $50 each. To subscribe go to http://www.aeaweb.org/joe/subscribe/. Single issues are available for $45 each.
Consider the price-quantity data and that the AEA has significant market power in the economics job advertisement market:
- P = $45, Q = 1
- P = $50, Q = 11 ... price per unit is about $4.50
Are they profit maximizing? Demand for the JOE is not annual. Most job candidates who prefer print over online ads will want to purchase October, November and December (when most tenure track academic jobs are advertised) and most employers will want to purchase only the issue where they advertise.
The implied demand elasticity is about 1 and the revenue is about the same under both pricing schemes. With those prices the AEA really wants to discourage single issue purchases. Imagine the nightmare of managing all of those different orders. The marginal cost of a single issue mailing (multiple mailing lists, etc) must be much higher than mailing everyone everthing, and paper is cheap.
