Cite unseen: Theory and evidence on the effect of open access on cites to academic articles across the quality spectrum
2021, Managerial and Decision Economics, 42(8), pp.1960-1979
Abstract
We model open access as facilitating full-text acquisition, which, while often increasing cites, can reduce cites from readers who refrain from citing superficially after realizing the article is not worth citing. We test the theory with data on over 200,000 science articles binned by cites in the pre-study period. Consistent with theory, we find that opening access to an article on the journal's website has a “Matthew effect” on citations: negative for the least-cited articles, positive for the most cited, and monotonic for quality levels in between. Estimates for broader open-access platforms and for cites coming from insiders versus outsiders also follow patterns consistent with theory.