Research productivity of the finance profession in the Asia-Pacific region

This study ranks the finance research productivity among the Asia-Pacific universities using a set of 17 finance journals during the decade of the 1990s. A total of 97 universities are ranked. The top five universities are Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, City University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of New South Wales, respectively. An interesting finding is that both school history and tradition seem irrelevant to the research productivity. Several prominent universities are not ranked in the top 20. The results suggest that motivations and the degree of research emphasis play an important role in research productivity but not the tradition and the history of a university. Moreover, when compared with other North American universities, the top 20 Asia-Pacific finance programs are comparable with leading state and private universities in the North America. The comparison is even more favorable to the Asia-Pacific universities during the second half of the 1990s. A majority of the top 20 Asia-Pacific universities have significantly improved their research productivity during the time period of 1995–1999.     

Accounting research in the Asia–Pacific region: an update

We provide an updated study of accounting research in the Asia–Pacific region using the publication records of six premier accounting journals (top-6) from 1991 to 2010, and augment the findings with the broader range of publications from an additional twenty accounting journals during the same period. Overall, the higher education institutions (HEIs) in the region produced 7.7 and 11.1 % of the total weighted number of articles (wt-articles) in the top-6 and 20 accounting journals. Interestingly, HEIs in the region exhibit a trend toward an increase in the yearly wt-articles and relative percentage of the total. The general performance of the accounting programs in the region is persistent during 1991–2010. The Asia–Pacific accounting programs are particularly successful in placing publications in journals such as Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting. The accounting research productivity, however, is dominated by select institutions in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Singapore. Several institutions in these four countries/areas maintain a consistently high ranking. In terms of top-6 accounting journal publications, the top five institutions are the University of New South Wales, Nanyang Technological University, the University of Melbourne, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The percentage share of the research output among the top five institutions is high, suggesting that a high hurdle is set for up-and-coming institutions to move up the rankings.     

A long-term assessment of finance research performance among Asia–Pacific academic institutions (1990–2008)

We provide a long-term assessment of finance research in the Asia–Pacific region. Similar to the earlier findings in Chan et al. (2001) and Chan et al. (2005), the Asia–Pacific academic institutions, as a group, perform very well during 1990–2008. The two quality-adjusted weighted article metrics suggest that institutions in the region exhibit an increasing trend in the absolute number of articles and the relative percentage share of global research output. The Gini coefficients, while showing that the degree of concentration of research output continues to be high, suggest that the degree of research output concentration steadily decreases over the period. During the sample period, the top five institutions are Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the University of New South Wales, Chinese University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The top two researchers' percentage share of total research output ranges from a low of 18.7% in Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to a high of 59.8% in RMIT University. Among the top 25 institutions, a total of 14 top researchers (28%) have left their affiliated institutions as of June 1, 2009, suggesting considerable job mobility among active researchers.     

Productivity in “Top‐Ten” Academic Accounting Journals by Researchers at Canadian Universities*

We examine the research productivity of academic accountants at Canadian universities for the 11‐year period 1990‐2000. Our analysis is based on the “top‐ten” ranked refereed journals in accounting, auditing, and taxation, as documented by Brown and Huefner (1994). We first provide an overview of the importance of publishing in highly ranked accounting journals for individual academics, departments, and business faculties. We then provide details of the proportion of articles published in each of these journals by academics from Canadian universities; the type of research published in each journal (auditing, financial accounting, managerial accounting, and taxation); and details of editorial board service. Our results indicate that even at the most productive Canadian university (in terms of “top‐ten” publications), faculty members publish (on average) approximately one article every seven years. Six Canadian universities have faculty members with, on average, more than one article in “top‐ten” journals every 10 years. We also provide results of analyses that rank each Canadian university, after controlling for the relative quality of each journal, using impact factors published by the Social Science Citation Index. In addition, statistics are provided with regard to the 15 most productive researchers, in terms of “top‐ten” publications, in the 11‐year period. Finally, in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association, we examine the productivity of academic accountants at Canadian universities over the past 25 years by combining our results with those reported by Richardson and Williams (1990).     

Who Is Publishing? An Analysis of Finance Research Productivity in the European Region

This study ranks the research productivity in finance across European universities and researchers using a set of 15 finance journals during the decade of the 1990s. A total of 219 universities are ranked. During the sample period from 1990 to 1999, UK universities dominate the top-20 ranking. However, the UK 's dominance is significantly reduced when the Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, a UKbased journal, is excluded from the analysis. Other non-UK European universities gain further ground when only the top-4 journals are used to measure ranking. Our analysis also shows that a majority of the top 20 European universities have made significant progress in research productivity over the period 1990–99. Additionally, we compare the top European universities to those in North America. The top European university, London Business School, compares to the 24th and 25th ranked North American universities for the period from 1990 to 1999; it compares to the 15th and 16th ranked North American universities for the more recent sub-period from 1995 to 1999. The top researcher is Henri Servaes from London Business School.     

Reviews

This study investigated the interaction between proficiency in both mathematics and English on students' performance in the first-year level financial accounting course, The data were gathered on the results of first-year accounting major students at the recently established Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and analysed using regression analysis. The findings showed that a higher degree of proficiency in mathematics was associated with a higher level of performance in the financial accounting course for students who were more competent in English.     

Global ranking of accounting programmes and the elite effect in accounting research

We provide a global ranking of accounting research and examine the elite degree and elite affiliation effect. Based on 24 accounting journals during the period 1991–2005, the top 5 most productive countries in accounting research are in the following order: the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong. We find a significant elite degree effect, indicating that authors who graduated from elite accounting programmes have a disproportionate share of publications in top‐notch journals. The same conclusion is also supported by the elite affiliation effect in which leading accounting journals have higher concentration of authors who are affiliated with elite institutions.     

Productivity in Top‐10 Academic Accounting Journals by Researchers at Canadian Universities at the Start of the 21st Century

We assess the research publication productivity of Canadian‐based accounting researchers in highly ranked accounting journals for the 2001–13 period. Our research provides important benchmarks for use by individual researchers and universities for matters such as promotion and tenure decisions. For example, each Canadian‐based faculty member had approximately 0.50 of a weighted article for the 13‐year period, and 45 percent of all accounting faculty members published at least once in a top‐10 accounting journal. We also provide an overview of the type of research being published by Canadian‐based researchers in each of the top‐10 journals (financial accounting, managerial, audit, tax or other) and we assess how productivity at top‐10 journals has changed over time. In supplemental analysis, we compare and contrast the productivity of the 15 male and 15 female academics that publish most in top‐10 accounting journals to assess the breadth of outlets being used beyond top‐10 outlets (including FT 45 journals, accounting journals ranked “A”, “B”, and “non‐A/B”; non‐accounting peer‐reviewed journals, non‐peer‐reviewed outlets). The supplemental analysis also helps to shed light on the finding from this paper, and prior research, that women are less likely to be represented on lists of those with most publications in highly ranked accounting journals, by comparing the two groups of researchers across a variety of institutional and other factors.     

Challenges faced by accountancy education during and beyond the years of transition—some Hong Kong evidence

The sovereignty of Hong Kong (HK) was returned to China on 1 July l997 and HK has become a Special Administrative Region of China under the principle of “one country, two systems”. In order to evaluate the impact of the “l997” issue on accountancy education in HK, the Department of Accountancy of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University was chosen as a case study. This paper discusses the accounting reforms taking place in China, the political factor of “1997”, and their corresponding impacts on accountancy education in HK. This discussion is followed by assessing the challenges faced and the responses made by the Department of Accountancy of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in order adapt to the challenges.     

One-and-a-half decades of global research output in Finance: 1990–2004

We provide a ranking of world finance research output by countries and institutions. Based upon 21 finance journals, the top five most productive countries are in the following order: U.S., U.K., Canada, Hong Kong, and Australia. We find that higher per capita GNP, English-speaking countries, and a capital market that offers her investors more protections are associated with higher level of finance literature production. New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and UCLA take the top five spots among the 1,126 academic institutions with most JF-pages appeared in 21 finance journals during the 15-year period from 1990 to 2004. The share of U.S. in the top-100 institutions is overwhelming; 78 out of the top-100 institutions come from U.S. We also show some factors that help to explain the cross-institutional variations among a sub-sample of the institutions. Specifically, faculty size, catalyst effect, and per capita budget are positively associated with research output.

The valuation properties of earnings and book values reported under IAS,domestic GAAP and U.S. GAAP: Evidence from China,Hong Kong,Japan, Korea and Singapore

This paper examines whether earnings or book value is the dominant valuation accounting measure for companies reporting under alternative accounting standards — International Accounting Standards (IAS)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP) or domestic accounting standards of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Singapore. Our sample consists of domestic firms in the five Asian countries and firms from these countries cross-listed in the United States as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) from 2002 to 2011. For domestic firms, book value is more informative than earnings for firms from Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Japan and Korea during 2002–2011 although their accounting standards are influenced by different systems. For the ADR sample, book value is more informative than earnings for U.S. GAAP reporters and reconcilers during 2002–2007. However, earnings are more informative than book value for U.S. GAAP reconcilers from China. After 2007, ADRs in our sample from Hong Kong, Japan and Korea continued to file under U.S. GAAP. Some ADRs from China filed under U.S. GAAP and some filed under IFRS. Earnings are more informative than book value for IFRS users; however, book value has higher incremental value relevance than earnings for U.S. GAAP users. We contribute to prior research by providing evidence on the valuation properties based on accounting measures reported under different GAAPs for the Asian countries.     

CAFR 1999–2021, the past two decades and a look ahead

The China Accounting and Finance Review (CAFR) was jointly established in 1999 by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Tsinghua University. Over the past 22 years, CAFR has published original papers in accounting and finance with a focus on China-related research. In this article, we review the journal’s publishing patterns and the impactful articles it has published, with the aim of better understanding past research on China-related issues and recent publication patterns and trends as well as developing new insight that may inspire future submissions. We divide past CAFR articles by topic into six groups: (i) information disclosure; (ii) auditing; (iii) corporate governance; (iv) market efficiency; (v) corporate finance; and (vi) miscellaneous. We use these categories as the basis of our review for articles published before 2020. We also summarize articles by their regional setting, research methodology, and authors’ university affiliation. We then highlight the contributions of a few impactful CAFR articles that are actively cited in both the Chinese and English literature. We complement the literature review by going over China’s financial stability research in JFS. We also compare CAFR with other major accounting and finance journals in the Asia-Pacific region. CAFR stands out by welcoming research using a diversity of regional settings and research topics. Finally, we discuss the new editorial strategies that began in 2020. Under the new editorial policy, CAFR now publishes more non-China and more cross-disciplinary studies than it used to. We review several recent publications to demonstrate the change. Going forward, we intend to call for the publication of more high-quality papers in accounting and finance that are not restricted to a region, area, or methodology providing new insights into accounting and finance.     

香港保险业的发展现状及监管经验借鉴

香港的保险业非常发达,是亚太区内保险公司最密集的地区,香港保险业的发展及其监管模式和经验尤其值得内地借鉴。本文分析了香港保险市场的发展现状,并从监管架构、监管法律体系、监管效率、中介人素质培养等方面概括了其监管特点和经验,有针对性地提出了完善内地保险监管体系的措施。     

Pre-holiday effects: International evidence on the decline and reversal of a stock market anomaly

The pre-holiday effect is one of the best known of the calendar effect anomalies. This paper extends prior work by examining whether the effect has declined for the U.S., U.K. and Hong Kong markets. For all three markets, the effect is shown to have declined, but only significantly in the U.S. The result is not surprising given the relative sophistication of the market. What is surprising, however, is the reversal of the pre-holiday effect during the period 1991–1997, with the mean return on pre-holiday days becoming negative, and the subsequent elimination of this effect during 1997–2003.     

Ranking North American accounting scholars publishing accounting education papers: 1966–2011

This paper ranks accounting’s education authors who teach at institutions located in the United States and Canada. During the 46-year period from 1966 through 2011 that we examined, 13 journals published accounting education papers; the publication period for each journal varies. The data indicate that only 31.4% of accounting’s 4855 doctoral faculty who teach at schools in North America have one or more publications in these 13 journals. For those doctorates still teaching, the research provides rankings of authors by doctoral year and for four periods: 2002–2011 (most recent 10 years), 1992–2001 (next 10-year period), 1966–1991 (last 26 years), and for the entire 46-year period. To acknowledge the contributions of retired and deceased authors, the research lists those authors who would have been included on the overall list had they still been actively teaching. While Urbancic (2009) and Brigham Young University (BYU) provide rankings of authors in accounting education, these rankings are limited in the scope of the journals included – Urbancic includes only six accounting education journals, while BYU includes only Issues in Accounting Education. We found that Urbancic’s (BYU’s) 10-year (20-year) data had a Spearman’s rho of −0.84 (0.39) with our rankings. We believe that data presented herein provides a more comprehensive ranking of accounting’s authors in the area of education.     

Causality and cointegration of stock markets among the United States,Japan and the South China Growth Triangle

This paper explores the causality and cointegration relationships among the stock markets of the United States, Japan and the South China Growth Triangle (SCGT) region. Applying the recently advanced unit root and cointegration techniques that allow for structural breaks over the sample period (October 2, 1992 to June 30, 1997), we find that there exists no cointegration among these markets except for that between Shanghai and Shenzhen. By invoking the Granger causality test and considering the non-synchronous trading problem, we will show that stock price changes in the US have more impact on SCGT markets than do those of Japan. More specifically, price changes in the US can be used to predict those of the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets on next day. Similarly, price changes on the Hong Kong stock market lead the Taiwan market by 1 day. Furthermore, the stock returns of the US and Hong Kong markets are found to be contemporaneous. Finally, there is a significant feedback relationship between the Shanghai and the Shenzhen Stock Exchanges.     

Financial Research in the European Region: a Long‐Term Assessment (1990–2008)

We provide a long‐term comprehensive assessment of financial research in the European region. As with earlier findings in Chan et al. (2004) , the European academic institutions, as a group, perform very well during the 1990–2008 period. Specifically, European institutions exhibit a steady increase in the share of global financial research. During the sample period, the top five institutions were London Business School, INSEAD, Sir John Cass Business School, London School of Economics, and Erasmus University Rotterdam. Subperiod analysis shows that some universities, such as Oxford University, increased their research output substantially. Many of the leading European scholars received their training and had prior experience in North American institutions. We find that a high ranking of the scholars’ affiliated and doctoral granting institutions is correlated with finance research productivity.     

Accounting and Finance: authorship and citation trends

Accounting and Finance (A&F ) has experienced a surge in published research in the last decade. The analysis here reveals a marked increase in the number of published articles in A&F since 2003, a distinct trend for published papers to have a larger number of authors, a significant and stable contribution by the top 5 Australian accounting/finance departments, as well as a notable increase in contribution from non‐US foreign universities, particularly those located in the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and Spain. An analysis of citations indicates the increasing impact of A&F in recent years.     

Accounting and Finance at forty: a retrospective evaluation

Accounting and Finance has evolved from a news bulletin to a full-grown refereed academic journal that has published papers written by authors from Australia, New Zealand, the United States of America, Canada, Europe and Asia. The Journal published its 41^st volume in 2001 and that anniversary issue coincides with the beginning of the new millennium. As part of the celebration of this important milestone, this article reviews the Journal's evolution, the variety of papers published and the Journal's impact on accounting and finance research in the Asia Pacific region. Data for 394 papers published in the Journal by 570 authors are analysed. I find that the distribution of institutions and authors that have published in the Journal is highly skewed, with the top five (11) institutions accounting for 35 per cent (51 per cent) of the published papers in the Journal. Similarly, 8 per cent of the authors have published 26 per cent of the articles in the Journal. Analysis of the citation pattern indicates that Accounting and Finance does not have much impact on research published in the Asia Pacific region, with the Journal accounting for only 1.06 per cent of all citations in the selected Asia Pacific journals. Sub-period analysis indicates that not even the establishment of the editorial board in the latter half of the 1990s has helped improve the impact of the Journal on research published in the Asia Pacific region. However, compared with other Asia-Pacific journals, Accounting and Finance has the strongest impact on publications in the selected journals. The impact is even stronger in the latter half of the 1990s. Also, the impact of Accounting and Finance on the more recent journals in the Asia Pacific region is stronger than that of the other more established journals.