IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2508.14301.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Value of Finance Journals

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas Cumming

Abstract

I present data from SCImago, 1999-2024, on factors that affect the valuation of finance journals. The SCImago data show some interesting facts; for example, in 2024, Finance Research Letters, valued at \$16.5 million, was four times more valuable than the Journal of Financial Economics (\$4.1m), five times more valuable than the Review of Financial Studies (\$3.3m), and over seven times more valuable than the Journal of Finance (\$2.3m). The data show that quality, as proxied by citations, positively affects journal value, and this value increase is heightened by citations from policy documents; similarly, the absence of quality, or a greater percentage of uncited documents, negatively affects journal value. The data indicate that the creation of the Elsevier Ecosystem of networked finance journals significantly enhances journal value. Further, a greater percentage of female authors positively impacts value. I discuss policy implications and suggestions for future work based on the evidence presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas Cumming, 2025. "The Value of Finance Journals," Papers 2508.14301, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2508.14301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.14301
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adams, Renée B. & Ferreira, Daniel, 2009. "Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 291-309, November.
    2. James J. Heckman & Sidharth Moktan, 2020. "Publishing and promotion in economics - The tyranny of the Top Five," Vox eBook Chapters, in: Sebastian Galliani & Ugo Panizza (ed.), Publishing and Measuring Success in Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 23-32, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    3. Berninger, M. & Kiesel, F. & Schnitzler, J., 2024. "Commercial Data in Financial Research," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 150272, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    4. 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.
    5. Laband, David N & Piette, Michael J, 1994. "Favoritism versus Search for Good Papers: Empirical Evidence Regarding the Behavior of Journal Editors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 194-203, February.
    6. Renée Adams & Jing Xu, 2023. "The Inequality of Finance," Review of Corporate Finance, now publishers, vol. 3(1-2), pages 35-68, May.
    7. Marc Berninger & Florian Kiesel & Jan Schnitzler, 2024. "Commercial Data in Financial Research," Review of Corporate Finance, now publishers, vol. 4(3–4), pages 293-335, September.
    8. Belo, Frederico & Gala, Vito D. & Salomao, Juliana & Vitorino, Maria Ana, 2022. "Decomposing firm value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 619-639.
    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. Angus, Simon D. & Atalay, Kadir & Newton, Jonathan & Ubilava, David, 2021. "Geographic diversity in economic publishing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 255-262.
    2. Lorenzo Ductor & Bauke Visser, 2023. "Concentration of power at the editorial boards of economics journals," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 189-238, April.
    3. Ann Mari May & Mary G. McGarvey & Yana Rodgers & Mark Killingsworth, 2021. "Critiques, Ethics, Prestige and Status: A Survey of Editors in Economics," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 295-318, April.
    4. Bethmann, Dirk & Bransch, Felix & Kvasnicka, Michael & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2023. "Home Bias in Top Economics Journals," IZA Discussion Papers 15965, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Ductor, Lorenzo & Visser, Bauke, 2022. "When a coauthor joins an editorial board," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 576-595.
    6. Rubin, Amir & Rubin, Eran & Segal, Dan, 2023. "Editor home bias?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(6).
    7. Demeze-Jouatsa, Ghislain-Herman & Pongou, Roland & Tondji, Jean-Baptiste, 2021. "A Free and Fair Economy: A Game of Justice and Inclusion," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 653, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    8. Carmela Lutmar & Yaniv Reingewertz, 2021. "Academic in-group bias in the top five economics journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9543-9556, December.
    9. Lutmar, Carmela & Reingewertz, Yaniv, 2020. "Academic in-group bias in economics," MPRA Paper 104730, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Raffaele Miniaci & Michele Pezzoni, 2020. "Social connections and editorship in economics," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 1292-1317, August.
    11. Ghislain H. Demeze-Jouatsa & Roland Pongou & Jean-Baptiste Tondji, 2021. "A Free and Fair Economy: A Game of Justice and Inclusion," Papers 2107.12870, arXiv.org.
    12. Kyle Siler & Philippe Vincent-Lamarre & Cassidy R Sugimoto & Vincent Larivière, 2022. "Cumulative advantage and citation performance of repeat authors in scholarly journals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(4), pages 1-17, April.
    13. Cloos, Janis & Greiff, Matthias & Rusch, Hannes, 2020. "Geographical Concentration and Editorial Favoritism within the Field of Laboratory Experimental Economics (RM/19/029-revised-)," Research Memorandum 014, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    14. El Tinay, Hassan & Schor, Juliet B., 2025. "Do economists think about climate change and inequality? Semantic analysis and topic modeling of top five economics journals," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    15. Matthias Aistleitner & Jakob Kapeller & Stefan Steinerberger, 2018. "Citation Patterns in Economics and Beyond," Working Papers Series 85, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    16. Lawson, Nicholas, 2023. "What citation tests really tell us about bias in academic publishing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    17. Alexander W. Salter & William J. Luther, 2019. "Adaptation and central banking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 243-256, September.
    18. Jakub Rybacki & Dobromił Serwa, 2021. "What Makes a Successful Scientist in a Central Bank? Evidence From the RePEc Database," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 13(3), pages 331-357, September.
    19. Matthias Aistleitner & Stephan Puehringer, 2023. "Biased Trade Narratives and Its Influence on Development Studies: A Multi-level Mixed-Method Approach," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(6), pages 1322-1346, December.
    20. Mohsen Javdani & Ha-Joon Chang, 2023. "Who said or what said? Estimating ideological bias in views among economists," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 47(2), pages 309-339.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2508.14301. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.