IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/intsec/v19y2024i4p472-507.html

Finance research over 40 years: What can we learn from machine learning?

Author

Listed:
  • Po‐Yu Liu
  • Zigan Wang

Abstract

We apply machine learning models to a universe of 20,185 finance articles published between 1976 and 2015 on 17 finance journals, and objectively identify 38 research topics. The financial crisis, hedge/mutual fund, social network, and culture were the fastest growing topics, while market microstructure, initial public offering, and option pricing shrank most from 2006 to 2015. We also list each topic's most cited papers, and present the fastest‐growing topics among the universe of 130,547 SSRN working papers. Moreover, we find a bibliometric regularity: the number of researchers covering n topics is about twice the number of researchers covering n + 1 topics.

Suggested Citation

  • Po‐Yu Liu & Zigan Wang, 2024. "Finance research over 40 years: What can we learn from machine learning?," International Studies of Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 472-507, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:intsec:v:19:y:2024:i:4:p:472-507
    DOI: 10.1002/ise3.95
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/ise3.95
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/ise3.95?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul C. Tetlock & Maytal Saar‐Tsechansky & Sofus Macskassy, 2008. "More Than Words: Quantifying Language to Measure Firms' Fundamentals," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1437-1467, June.
    2. Stephen Hansen & Michael McMahon & Andrea Prat, 2018. "Transparency and Deliberation Within the FOMC: A Computational Linguistics Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 801-870.
    3. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2014. "Measuring Readability in Financial Disclosures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(4), pages 1643-1671, August.
    4. Loughran, Tim & McDonald, Bill, 2013. "IPO first-day returns, offer price revisions, volatility, and form S-1 language," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 307-326.
    5. Gerard Hoberg & Gordon Phillips, 2010. "Product Market Synergies and Competition in Mergers and Acquisitions: A Text-Based Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(10), pages 3773-3811, October.
    6. Niemi, Albert W, Jr, 1987. "Institutional Contributions to the Leading Finance Journals, 1975 through 1986: A Note," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(5), pages 1389-1397, December.
    7. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    8. Glenn Ellison, 2013. "How Does the Market Use Citation Data? The Hirsch Index in Economics," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 63-90, July.
    9. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:351-363 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2009. "Bank governance, regulation and risk taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 259-275, August.
    11. Reinartz, Sebastian J. & Urban, Daniel, 2017. "Finance conference quality and publication success: A conference ranking," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 155-174.
    12. Tommaso Colussi, 2018. "Social Ties in Academia: A Friend Is a Treasure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 45-50, March.
    13. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    14. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2011. "When Is a Liability Not a Liability? Textual Analysis, Dictionaries, and 10‐Ks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 35-65, February.
    15. Chan, Kam C. & Chang, Chih-Hsiang & Chang, Yuanchen, 2013. "Ranking of finance journals: Some Google Scholar citation perspectives," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 241-250.
    16. Zivney, Terry L & Bertin, William J, 1992. "Publish or Perish: What the Competition Is Really Doing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(1), pages 295-329, March.
    17. Brogaard, Jonathan & Engelberg, Joseph & Parsons, Christopher A., 2014. "Networks and productivity: Causal evidence from editor rotations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 251-270.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthias M M Buehlmaier & Josef Zechner, 2021. "Financial Media, Price Discovery, and Merger Arbitrage [Who writes the news? Corporate press releases during merger negotiations]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 25(4), pages 997-1046.
    2. Ahmed, Yousry & Elshandidy, Tamer, 2016. "The effect of bidder conservatism on M&A decisions: Text-based evidence from US 10-K filings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 176-190.
    3. Mohamed Malek Belhoula & Naima Lassoued & Imen Khanchel & Dorsaf Ghraidi, 2026. "Beyond numbers: negative disclosure tone, bank risk, and ownership structure in Middle East and North African Banks," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(1), pages 224-239, March.
    4. Cookson, J. Anthony & Moon, S. Katie & Noh, Joonki, 2020. "Imprecise and Informative: Lessons from Market Reactions to Imprecise Disclosure," SocArXiv akt2c, Center for Open Science.
    5. Kiridaran Kanagaretnam & Wen Li & Guifeng Shi & Zejiang Zhou, 2025. "Ambiguity of tone in annual reports and bank risk taking," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 65(1), pages 935-970, March.
    6. Stephen Hansen & Michael McMahon, 2016. "Shocking Language: Understanding the Macroeconomic Effects of Central Bank Communication," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2015, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Ramiro Losada, 2022. "La información pública periódica de los fondos de inversión: como influyen en las decisiones de los inversores," CNMV Documentos de Trabajo CNMV Documentos de Trabaj, CNMV- Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores - Departamento de Estudios y Estadísticas.
    8. Carretta, Alessandro & Farina, Vincenzo & Fiordelisi, Franco & Schwizer, Paola & Stentella Lopes, Francesco Saverio, 2015. "Don’t Stand So Close to Me: The role of supervisory style in banking stability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 180-188.
    9. Benson, David F. & Brau, James C. & Cicon, James & Ferris, Stephen P., 2015. "Strategically camouflaged corporate governance in IPOs: Entrepreneurial masking and impression management," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 839-864.
    10. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2016. "Textual Analysis in Accounting and Finance: A Survey," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 54(4), pages 1187-1230, September.
    11. Jang, Jaehee & Wu, Xiaoying, 2026. "Non-English textual analysis with large language models: Analysts’ use of MD&A sentiment in earnings forecasting," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1).
    12. Ramiro Losada, 2022. "Periodic public information on investment funds and how it influences investors´ decisions," CNMV Working Papers CNMV Working Papers no. 7, CNMV- Spanish Securities Markets Commission - Research and Statistics Department.
    13. Szyszko, Magdalena & Rutkowska, Aleksandra & Kliber, Agata, 2022. "Do words affect expectations? The effect of central banks communication on consumer inflation expectations," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 221-229.
    14. Guo, Haifeng & Wang, Ying & Wang, Bo & Ge, Yuanjing, 2022. "Does prospectus AE affect IPO underpricing? A content analysis of the Chinese stock market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-12.
    15. Del Gaudio, Belinda L. & Megaravalli, Amith V. & Sampagnaro, Gabriele & Verdoliva, Vincenzo, 2020. "Mandatory disclosure tone and bank risk-taking: Evidence from Europe," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    16. Yan Luo & Linying Zhou, 2020. "Textual tone in corporate financial disclosures: a survey of the literature," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(2), pages 101-110, September.
    17. David Bholat & Stephen Hans & Pedro Santos & Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, 2015. "Text mining for central banks," Handbooks, Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England, number 33, April.
    18. Jana P. Fidrmuc & Tereza Tykvova, 2023. "Are Acquirer Shareholders Happier when Their Industries Are Unhappy?," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 23-52, Swiss Finance Institute.
    19. Doshi, Hitesh & Patel, Saurin & Ramani, Srikanth & Sooy, Matthew, 2023. "Uncertain tone, asset volatility and credit default swap spreads," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3).
    20. D. G. DeBoskey & Yan Luo & Linying Zhou, 2019. "CEO power, board oversight, and earnings announcement tone," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 657-680, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:intsec:v:19:y:2024:i:4:p:472-507. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.