What's Hot in Finance? (2007-2011)

Abstract:     
As in years past, to catalyze the students in my Ph.D. F798 class to think of finance ideas, I asked each one of them to read the abstracts of finance articles published in the last 5 years in JF, JFE, RFS and JFQA. Their report is attached. Here are some general observations from the hard data above and the soft data generated from classroom discussions:

(1) Classification into sub-topics is even more difficult than last year. There are more papers published which are not only inter-topic, but also inter-disciplinary. Finance is very driven by the issues of the day. Issues do not fit in neat silos. (2) The issues that finance papers analyze are issues of the past like the recent financial crisis; like our generals, we seem to be fighting the last war. (3) Though empirical papers dominate, theoretical papers or theoretical papers with empirical tests have trended up slightly. (4) Though empirical corporate remains the most popular field, its popularity is not rising. Asset pricing papers and particularly papers in investments (mutual funds and hedge funds) are trending up. (5) Finance journals dominate. Amongst finance journals, RFS has climbed steadily to become no 1 and it remains there. (6) Top non-finance journals publish many finance papers (on an average 15%-20%). Curiously, with the notable exception of QJE, all the other top economic journals have seen dramatic drops in cite counts.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 68

Keywords: asset pricing, corporate finance, investments

JEL Classification: G10

working papers series