Theodore C. Bergstrom, Paul N. Courant, R. Preston McAfee, and Michael A. Williams
Evaluating big deal journal bundles
PNAS 2014 ; published ahead of print June 16, 2014, doi:10.1073/pnas.1403006111
Free version:
http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/PNAS-2014-Bergstrom-1403006111.pdf
Data supplement
http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2014/06/11/1403006111.DCSupplemental/pnas.1403006111.sapp.pdf

Excerpt:

"So what secrets of the big deal have Freedom of Information
requests allowed us to uncover?

We find that even with the institution-specific discounts resulting
from bundled purchases, the prices per citation charged to
large PhD-granting universities by major commercial publishers
are much higher than those charged by major nonprofit publishers.
Among the commercial publishers in our study, Elsevier’s
prices per citation are nearly 3 times those charged by the nonprofits, whereas Emerald, Sage, and Taylor & Francis have prices per citation that are roughly 10 times those of the nonprofits.
[...]
The contracts that we have seen show remarkable institutionspecific price variations that cannot be explained by university characteristics such as enrollment and PhD production. Some institutions have been quite successful in bargaining for lower
prices, whereas others may not have been aware that better
bargains can be reached. Perhaps this variation explains publishers’
desire to keep contract terms confidential."

See also

http://www.infodocket.com/2014/06/18/new-research-article-evaluating-big-deal-journal-bundles/

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/16/universities-get-poor-value-academic-journal-publishing-firms?CMP=twt_gu

http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2014/06/18/is-your-big-deal-a-good-deal/

http://www.attemptingelegance.com/?p=2517

http://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/?p=12693