As others have suggested, paying referees may improve the quality of their reviews. However, I believe that payment should be restricted to those referees who provide reviews within a defined period; say, two to three weeks or less.
Each journal could develop a process whereby authors who want a manuscript reviewed expeditiously would pay a nonrefundable fee at the time of submission. The fee would be based on length; a fair price might be $5 per typed page. To set the fee, each journal could conduct a survey to determine the average actual length of time a referee takes to read a manuscript N pages long. I usually limit myself to five hours per manuscript. On the basis of reviews I've received, I would guess that many referees spend less than two hours per manuscript. The fee charged to authors would be paid to the reviewers if they return their ...
