Author Affiliation Index, Finance Journal Ranking, and the Pattern of Authorship

Abstract

In this paper we use a new method to rank finance journals and study the pattern of authorship/co-authorship across journals. Author Affiliation Index is a cost-effective and intuitively easy-to-understand approach to journal rankings. We define Author Affiliation Index as the ratio of articles authored by faculties at the world's top 80 finance programs divided by the total number of articles by all authors. Forty-one finance journals are ranked according to this index. If properly constructed, Author Affiliation Index provides an easy and credible way to supplement the existing journal ranking methods. Our ranking system reveals journal-researcher clienteles, and we find that collaboration (coauthoring) between faculties within elite programs exists only in top-tier and near-top-tier journals. Publications in low-tier journals by researchers of elite programs are driven by their co-authors. Collaboration between faculty in elite and non-elite programs, however, is more prevalent than that within elite programs across all tiers of journals. Co-authorship among top 80 programs, nevertheless, is more common in top-tier journals; while co-authorship between top 80 and other programs is more dominant in lower ranked journals.

Keywords: Finance journal ranking, author affiliation index, authorship pattern

JEL Classification: G00