The cross-subsidy and buy-one-give-one models of compensated peer review: A comparative study for mission-driven journals

Abstract

A financial compensation model could incentivise peer reviewers to provide the optimal amount of effort by rewarding them for their quality reports. Therefore, in this article, we consider peer-reviewed journals with the mission to financially compensate reviewers for delivering quality reports and to ensure affordable access to peer review for every author. In a cross-subsidy scenario of compensated peer review, the mission-driven journals expect all authors to pay for either the standard or a premium peer review. However, using this strategy, the journals offer standard peer review to low-income authors at lower prices, compared with the premium price high-income authors pay for higher-quality peer review. In addition, we also present a buy-one-give-one model of compensated peer review for the mission-driven journals. In this alternative setting, when a high-income author pays for a premium peer review, the journals would donate a certain number of free peer reviews to the low-income authors who are unable to afford them. In this two-tiered system, scholars with access to more funding receive premium treatment, while low-income authors can still access standard peer review similar to what authors currently receive for free. In this article, we show a comparative study between the cross-subsidy and buy-one-give-one models of compensated peer review. We find that a buy-one-give-one scenario provides a higher total sum of financial and social gain than the cross-subsidy scenario either when the mission-driven journals are highly socially responsible or when the social gap between the high-income and the low-income authors is large enough.