The Journal of Finance

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of financial research. It is one of the most widely cited academic journals on finance and one of the most widely cited journals in all of economics as well. Each issue of the journal reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, government and financial institutions around the world. Published six times a year, the journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.[6] The purpose of the AFA is to provide for the mutual association of persons with an interest in finance, to improve public understanding of financial problems, to provide for the exchange of financial ideas through the distribution of a periodical and other media, to encourage the study of finance in colleges and universities, and to conduct such other activities as may be appropriate for a non-profit, professional society in the field of finance.[7]

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of financial research.[8] The growing prominence of corporate governance research, particularly among the elite journals, and an increase in research around bankruptcy, default and credit risk following the global financial crisis, suggests that finance researchers are responding to the evolution of real-world events when determining their research agendas. Recurring concepts in the Journal of Finance are especially Corporate Governance, volatility, options, pricing, performance measurement and Trading.[9]

The editorial board of the journal of finance consists of Editor, Co-Editors and Associate Editors. The Executive Editor is Stefan Nagel, who is a Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The Co-Editors are Philipp Bond (University of Washington), Amit Seru (Stanford University) and Wei Xiong (Princeton University). Moreover, there are several Associate-Editors who teach at well-known Universities worldwide, e.g. London School of Economics, Yale University, Columbia University.[10]

The following persons are or have been editor-in-chief of the journal:[11]

Each year the top papers published in the journal are nominated for the Smith Breeden and Brattle Prizes.

The US is pre-eminent in terms of the volume of work published in the leading journals in finance and US authors also over-achieve in terms of citations. Moreover, it appears that US journals are less likely to publish work by non-US based authors than journals edited in other locations. Furthermore, there is a concentration of finance research and citations towards the top-rated institutions. More than half of papers published in the JOD are by authors in the Times Higher Education’s Top 100 universities, and three-quarters are from the QS Top 200 MBA Schools. This concentration of publications in the top journals among authors from elite institutions, especially in the US, is concerning. It prevents researchers from other institutions to compete on a level playing field when producing research of comparable quality to those at the elite universities.

Publications in elite finance journals drive the research agendas not only within their own spheres of activity but their influence is pervasive across all finance research. Future researchers will try to pin their arguments to this mast and finance scholars appear to view citing research from anything other than the very highest rated journals as diminishing the perceived standing of their own work which would damage its chances of publication. Therefore, even high-quality research in low rated journals will struggle to gain any sort of widespread recognition by other researchers.

The broad similarities in subject matter and in methodology in finance publications across journal quality ratings are striking and it is ironic that a discipline which espouses the benefits of diversification as one of its core principles shows a research style and agenda that is so very narrow. The lack of paradigmatic diversity is dangerous because it helps to reinforce the narrowing of research agendas and methodological approaches to those preferred by the top journals, especially as the latter have little incentive to change the status quo given that they have done so well from the existing structure.[12]

• Official website
• Journal page on American Finance Association website