Ranking Accounting Ph.D. Programs and Faculties Using Social Science Research Network Downloads

We rank accounting Ph.D. programs and accounting faculties based on downloads individuals' working papers posted to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) receive. We retain 185 individuals included in Accounting Faculty Directory 2002–2003 (Hasselback, 2002) whose work has been most heavily downloaded as of August 21, 2002. We rank Ph.D. programs (faculties) both adjusting and not adjusting for program (faculty) size. We provide rankings both without regards to when individuals graduated and for individuals graduating during three consecutive sub-periods: pre-1982, 1982–1991 and 1992–2001. We first provide rankings without regards to teaching or research area. After dichotomizing individuals into those whose teaching/research area is financial versus non-financial we provide additional rankings focusing on non-financial research areas.     

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.

Accounting Ph.D. program graduates: affiliation performance and publication performance

We examine the affiliation performance and publication performance of 1991–1997 accounting Ph.D. graduates. We define affiliation performance as whether or not an individual is employed at a school with an accounting program ranked by Trieschmann et al. (Academy of Management Journal 43:1130–1141, 2000). We define publication performance in two ways, whether or not the Ph.D. graduate published in at least one of: (1) three premier accounting journals, and (2) a broader set of eight accounting journals. We examine the influence of the institutional status (private versus public) of the graduating institution on both affiliation performance and publication performance. We examine the institutional status both unconditionally and conditionally on four article types published in three premier journals: (1) articles from Ph.D. dissertations, (2) co-authored articles with degree-school faculty, (3) co-authored articles with degree-school Ph.D. students, and (4) co-authored articles with affiliated faculty. We show that accounting graduates of private schools are more likely to be affiliated with higher ranked schools, but they are not more likely to publish in the premier journals or the broader set of eight journals.

Finance editorial board membership and research productivity

The research productivity of board members of the top academic finance journals—Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Financial Management—is investigated. Discipline specific benchmarks for substantial research excellence are determined and an evaluation of influential finance journals is presented. Publication in Journal of Finance is the most notable benchmark for selection to the editorial board of any of the finance journals evaluated. The results imply that publishing one article in Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics or Review of Financial Studies in a 5-year period coupled with additional appearances in the broader top tier finance journals would be representative of exceptional research achievement.

A review of research on regulation changes in the Asia‐Pacific region

In this study, we review the financial research on regulation in the Asia‐Pacific region. We do this by analysing six leading regional accounting and finance journals – Abacus, Accounting & Finance, Australian Accounting Review, Australian Journal of Management, International Review of Finance and the Pacific‐Basin Finance Journal. We identify five main themes of regulation research relating to: (i) banking and financial institutions, (ii) markets and trading, (iii) corporate governance, (iv) disclosure and (v) accounting standard setting. Our paper synthesises the regional literature in these areas and provide some suggestions for future directions.     

Job Market Signaling: What Drives the Productivity of Finance Ph.D.s?

We study the research productivity of new finance Ph.D.s as measured by the number of quality publications. A commonly accepted notion is that the highest ranked schools produce the candidates with the greatest potential for high‐quality publications. Our results, however, find publications or revisions in top‐tier journals during the doctoral program are a stronger measure of potential research productivity than the school attended. Our findings demonstrate how candidates outside of the top schools can signal their future research productivity. Even though we examine the specialized labor market, our results have broader implications for markets outside academics.     

Technology and Financial Development

The growth benefits from financial development are known to vary across industries. However, no systematic effort has been made to determine the technological characteristics shared by industries that grow relatively faster in more financially developed economies. Using the standard growth‐theoretic definition of technology in terms of the production function, we explore a range of technological characteristics that theory suggests might underpin differences across industries in the need or the ability to raise external finance. We find that industries that grow faster in more financially developed countries display greater R&D intensity and investment lumpiness, indicating that well‐functioning financial markets direct resources toward industries where growth is driven by R&D.     

Role models in finance: Lessons from life cycle productivity of prolific scholars

This paper examines the nature of lifecycle intellectual contributions (publication productivity and quality) of prolific scholars in finance, i.e., those that have published twelve or more scholarly papers in finance journals. Like other scholars, their productivity increases dramatically in the years before tenure and early success seems to be a useful forecast of future quality and quantity of publications. However, unlike the average finance Ph.D., these role models begin publishing earlier and they maintain a high level of productivity over long periods with productivity appearing to decline only slightly after tenure. Further, there is increasing tendency to publish with co-authors and there is high concentration of these prolific scholars especially at the five top-rated finance journals. Our findings have important implications for aspiring new finance professors.

Fifty years of finance research in the Asia Pacific Basin

In this paper, we review the history of scholarly finance research in the Asia Pacific Basin. We do this by analysing the four leading regional finance journals – Accounting and Finance, Australian Journal of Management, International Review of Finance and the Pacific‐Basin Finance Journal – along five dimensions. The five dimensions are the most cited papers, noted authors, impact in terms of practice, research areas and a breakdown in terms of the development of the field according to Kuhnian concepts of normal science, anomalies and extraordinary science. We show that the Asia Pacific journals make a crucial contribution to research and practice both in the region and internationally.     

Threshold citation analysis of influential articles,journals, institutions and researchers in accounting

We use a threshold citation approach to measure the influence of articles, journals, institutions and researchers in accounting research. The Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting and Economics and Accounting Review are the 3 most influential journals in accounting research. The 3 most influential institutions in accounting research are the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan, while the 3 most frequently cited authors in accounting research are Richard G. Sloan, Robert E. Verrecchia and Paul M. Healy.     

Rethinking “Strength of Incentives” for Executives of Financial Institutions

The recent crisis has caused some finance theorists and practitioners to rethink the effects of managerial incentives on the total enterprise value of large financial institutions. This re-examination has identified and analyzed a number of potential problems with the use of equity-based compensation, including insufficiently long managerial time horizons as well as the temptation for excessive risk-taking provided by “asymmetric” payoff structures in which shareholders have virtually all the upside while debtholders bear most of the downside risk. In an attempt to address such problems, finance and governance scholars have increasingly explored the possible value of aligning managerial interests with those of not only shareholders, but other important corporate claimants such as debtholders and taxpayers. After reviewing the latest thinking about risk and managerial incentives at financial institutions, the authors come to the following conclusions:

• • The design of incentives for value maximization needs to reflect a healthy appreciation of downside risk as well as upside reward, and both senior and subordinated debt may be ideal instruments for establishing that balance. At the same time, most senior executives should continue to receive equity-linked compensation in addition to significant proportions of “inside debt.”
• • Since decision-makers below the highest level executives of large financial institutions collectively wield enormous power to assume and manage risks, this “upper-middle” tier of managers deserves special attention. Rather than rewarding these managers with stock or options, the authors suggest use of a combination of uncapped but “held-at-risk” bonuses denominated in subordinated inside debt as the best way of rewarding effort and competence while controlling opportunities for risk-shifting.

     

Relative Significance of Journals,Authors, and Articles Cited in Financial Research

We evaluate journals based on their relative contributions to top-level finance research in a recent period. Journals are ranked according to the number of citations found in articles published in Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Review of Financial Studies. The analysis controls for both the average number of articles and average number of words published annually in each cited journal. We identify the fifty most frequently cited journals during this period. We also list the fifty most frequently cited authors and articles and note topical trends in the research.     

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.     

THE WRITINGS OF HENRY A. LATANÉ: A COMPILATION AND ANALYSIS

A native Virginian, Henry A. Latané was born in Buchanan, Botetourt County, in 1907. He received a BA degree from the University of Richmond in 1928 and an MBA degree from Harvard University in 1930. From 1930 to 1940 he was employed by Bankers Trust Company of New York as a security analyst. In 1940 he joined Lionel D. Edie and Company, also in New York, and remained with that firm as a security analyst until 1951. It was while he was with Lionel D. Edie that his first publication appeared, a short article in the Journal of the American Statistical Association ( 1942 ) concerning deriving seasonal factors in economic time series data. The Latané family moved from New York to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1951, where he obtained a Ph.D. degree in Economics from the University of North Carolina in 1957. Before completing his doctorate, however, he had published articles in the Southern Economic Journal, The Journal of Finance, and The Review of Economics and Statistics, all in 1954. His dissertation, completed in 1957 and entitled “Rational Decision Making in Portfolio Management,” provided the foundation for many of the Latané writings that have appeared in subsequent years. Latané joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina as a Research Associate in 1958 and was appointed Professor of Finance and Economics in 1960. He was elected Meade H. Willis, Sr. Professor of Investment Banking in 1969 and achieved emeritus status in 1981. He was one of the first to obtain the professional designation Chartered Financial Analyst in 1965. For many years he has been a member of both the New York Society and the North Carolina Society of Security Analysts. He served as Vice President of the Southern Economic Association during 1974–1976 and was an Associate Editor of The Journal of Finance from 1973 to 1981.     

THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF JOURNALS USED IN FINANCE RESEARCH

The relative importance of various finance and related journals to research published in major finance journals is determined by noting the frequency that all other journals are cited in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Journal of Money, Credit and Banking during the period 1980 to mid?1985. Journals are ranked on the basis of their actual number of citations, citations per article, and citations per 10,000 words published annually. Results give an objective criterion for evaluating the relative impact on the major finance literature of writing in alternative journals. The list of journals developed with the citations methodology differs markedly, on the whole, from the list ranked by Coe and Weinstock (1983) who simply surveyed department chairpersons. Journals that are common to both lists, however, are ranked very much alike, indicating that chairpersons may rank journals they think to include in a subjective list in a way that is consistent with the citations criterion.     

Ranking accounting authors and departments in accounting education: different methodologies – significantly different results

This research tests whether Holderness Jr., D. K., Myers, N., Summers, S. L., & Wood, D. A. [(2014). Accounting education research: Ranking institutions and individual scholars. Issues in Accounting Education, 29(1), 87–115] accounting-education rankings are sensitive to a change in the set of journals used. It provides updated rankings for accounting-education authors from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States using a sample that included the publications in 13 accounting-education journals. Our analysis indicated that Holderness et al.’s rankings of authors and departments were significantly different from our rankings. This research provides rankings of the top 50 authors and departments for three periods: from 2010 to 2015, from 2004 to 2015, and from 1992 to 2015. We provide data indicating the distribution of authors for these periods to assist authors not listed in the most prolific lists in determining their relative ranking. Finally, we provide data on the distribution of journal choices for accounting-education publications for the authors from each country.     

Sixty years of research leadership: contributing authors and institutions to the journal of finance

While corporate executives freely admit that they work in a jungle, faculty members in institutions of higher learning are supposed to pretend that they work in the relaxed atmosphere of an informal English garden (Alice Vandermeulen, 1975).

The Journal of Finance was the first pure finance journal to emphasize research, and it has been the undisputed “gold standard” in academic finance literature for the past 60 years. This study identifies the contributors to JF over these 60 years—the authors, the institutions employing the authors, and the institutions granting PhDs to the authors. The prolific authors listed in this article make it look easy, like Alice’s relaxed English garden, but the information reported herein suggests otherwise.

农村金融的根本问题与现实选择

本文以2006-2007年对中国西部和中部12省区的农户调查所反映出的资金流出农村、正规金融机构不能满足农户信贷需求的现象进行了深入的分析,指出我国农村金融的根本问题是解决农村经济发展所需的资金问题.而在我国现阶段,农村正规金融机构"离农"有其必然性.应该以发展的观,最看待农村金融.农村金融的破题,离不开农村经济的发展.而目前的现实选择则是鼓励各种形式的金融组织在农村提供服务.     

The influence of the CEO's value perception towards auditing on audit demand in private firms

Audit demand is generally considered to be a direct reflection of the level of agency conflicts. This study examines the CEO's value perception towards auditing as additional driver for both auditor reputation demand (appointing a Big 4 auditor or not) and audit effort demand in private firms. Examining the CEO's value perception in a multidimensional way, the regression results indicate that the CEO's functional value perception towards auditing positively affects the demand for audit effort, while the CEO's social value perception towards auditing negatively affects the demand for audit effort but positively affects the demand for auditor reputation.     

Diversifying finance research: From financialization to sustainability

This paper seeks to overcome the apparent contradictions between global demand for sustainability and the structure of conventional financial discourse by putting forth a strategy for diversifying academic finance. It comprises four sections. I first situate academic finance within the broader spectrum of social sciences and highlight its ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions. Second, I show that these assumptions, taken for granted within the field of finance, are the object of much debate within other fields – as is demonstrated by controversy regarding logical positivism, social ontology and performativity – which brings out the limitations of paradigmatic unity in finance. Third, I characterize diversification in finance with reference to the nested epistemological structure of scientific discourse. I argue that diversification is a process by which (i) finance research is extended to other existing paradigms in social sciences; (ii) new research metaphors are developed within the current paradigm; and (iii) puzzle-solving robustness is achieved. Fourth, I develop a research agenda for the diversification of academic finance. This agenda is broken down into themes, paradigmatic hypotheses, and research questions.