As reported by Josh Gans:

I was directed to a paper by Mark McCabe and Chris Snyder (here is what used to be the link). It was a paper published in the BE Press journal Economic Analysis and Policy and it was a model of academic journal prices. To my surprise, I couldn’t access it. It was subscriber only. The reason: BE Press’s journals had been acquired by de Gruyter and obviously they had changed the policy.

Indeed I checked, and I cannot access my own article unless I am prepared to pony up $45.  The moral of the story is if you think you are publishing in an Open Access journal but your article is not licensed to the public, the publisher has no commitment not to eventually sell it to somebody else who will not honor the original deal.  I think the editor of that journal should resign.

Note well:  Theoretical Economics is a true Open Access journal.  Published articles are publicly licensed under Creative Commons and nobody has the right to close access ever, nor can they acquire that right.  It also happens to be the top field journal in economic theory.

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