Tracing the Evolution of Finance Research: A Topic Modeling Analysis of AJG-Ranked Journals

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of evolving research trends in academic finance, using data from 78,822 articles published across 110 finance journals between 2000 and 2022. Additionally, we track citation changes for 96% of these articles over an 18-month period, offering a longitudinal perspective on academic influence. By applying Structural Topic Modeling (STM), we identify 20 key research topics, which are grouped into five broader themes: Financial Markets, Corporate Finance, Risk and Reward, Money, Credit and Banks, and Other Finance. Our findings highlight the prominence of topics like Corporate Governance and Corporate Finance, which dominate both publication volume and citation counts, indicating their lasting impact on the field. In contrast, areas such as Option Pricing and Market Volatility are in decline, signaling a shift in academic interest toward newer areas such as Alternative Finance, which shows substantial growth in recent years. The analysis reveals a trend toward increased collaboration, with top-tier journals showing a significant rise in the average team size, underscoring the growing complexity of finance research. By incorporating citation burst analysis, we identify the hottest and coldest topics based on publication volume, citation counts, and outlier analysis. A linear regression model is used to assess the performance of each topic across different journal tiers, offering a nuanced understanding of how topics perform in various academic outlets. These results provide valuable insights into the shifting priorities of finance research, offering a roadmap for future inquiry. Our study emphasizes the importance of integrating emerging technologies and innovations into traditional finance models while addressing the challenges of interdisciplinary research in an increasingly complex financial landscape.

Keywords: Structural Topic Modeling, Finance Research Trends, Topic Modeling, Team Collaboration

JEL Classification: C81, J18