Voting with Their Feet: In Which Journals Do the Most Prolific Finance Researchers Publish?

Abstract

The financial economics literature has experienced rapid growth over the past 40 years, triggering a dramatic increase in the number of journals. We employ a new method to analyze the current pecking order of finance journals. Specifically, we analyze the publication records of prolific authors to provide evidence regarding the perceived quality of a set of 23 high-impact finance journals. Assuming these scholars target the "best" research outlets, their publication records can reveal information about their subjective rankings of the next-best alternatives to the traditional elite finance journals. The results suggest that prolific authors are most likely to target outlets that have raised their profile in recent years (e.g., Financial Management and Financial Analysts Journal) and new specialized finance journals (e.g., Journal of Financial Markets, Journal of Corporate Finance, and Journal of Financial Intermediation) when publishing outside the set of elite journals. © 2013 Financial Management Association International.