The AEA is missing a golden opportunity

"The American Economic Association is asking its membership to approve a drastic restructuring of its dues. There are two reasons for this. One, the AEA is swimming in money...and would have difficulties maintaining its non-profit status with fiscal authorities. Two, by default members get hard copies of the journals and need to opt out to reduce their membership fee. By making the default membership without journals, the AEA hopes to save on printing costs and thus can lower the average membership fee even more. I will vote against the change not because I dislike a decrease in the fee, but because I believe the AEA has missed here a tremendous opportunity of putting its journals in open access. This is a society with a sound financial basis that could set an example for the rest of the publishers by showing that good research should not be gated...."