The unseen costs of article processing charges: The different realities of Brazil and the Netherlands

The analysis of APCs and Gold OA publishing suggests there may be a significant correlation, at the country-level, in APC expenses and the citation impact of resulting publications. High APC-values are then a disadvantage for low and middle-income countries, and they are even worse than what their nominal value reveals, as exchange rates based on purchase power parity indicators show how much more costly it can be to publish in US dollars. Thus, while OA publishing was intended to further equality, we now witness a higher chance of scholars being excluded from publishing.