Report of the Editor of the Journal of Finance for the Year 2014

• Author: BRUNO BIAIS,MICHAEL ROBERTS,KENNETH J. SINGLETON
• Date: 01 August 2015
• Published date: 01 August 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12290

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE •VOL. LXX, NO. 4 •AUGUST 2015

Report of the Editor of the Journal of Finance

for the Year 2014

KENNETH J. SINGLETON, EDITOR,

BRUNO BIAIS, and MICHAEL ROBERTS, CO-EDITORS

I am happy to report that 2014 was another good year for The Journal of

Finance. We received 1,279 submissions, of which 1,156 were new manuscripts.

The number of new submissions was down slightly from 2013. There were 123

resubmissions, slightly below the 132 in 2013. Table Idetails the number of

submissions received throughout the year.

In 2014, the Journal published 71 articles, written by authors whose primary

affiliations include 92 different institutions. Primary affiliations are summa-

rized in Table II, which reports the number of authors per institution (where an

article with nauthors is counted as 1/n articles for each author’s institution).

The institutions with the most Journal authors last year were the University

of Chicago, University of Southern California, London Business School, and

New York University.

The Journal’s visibility and impact, summarized in Table III, remain ex-

tremely high. Articles published in the Journal were cited 21,843 times dur-

ing 2013, a total that ranks first among business and finance journals and

third among all economics journals (behind the American Economic Review

and Econometrica). Our one-year impact factor (cites during 2013 to articles

published in 2011 and 2012, divided by the total number of articles published

in 2011 and 2012) is 6.033 (up from 4.33 in 2012), which ranks first among

business and finance journals and second among all economics journals. The

five-year impact factor is 7.399, which ranks third among all economics jour-

nals (behind the Journal of Economic Literature and the Quarterly Journal of

Economics).

Turnaround times remain good. As Table IV shows, 65.6% of the editorial

decisions in 2014 took less than 70 days and 12.5% took over 100 days, rep-

resenting improvements from 2013’s 62.0% and 15.8%, respectively. Figure 1

compares turnaround over the 2010 to 2014 period. The median turnaround

time decreased in 2014 to 45 days from 50 days in 2013.

There are several reasons that papers take more than 100 days to process.

First, referees occasionally take much longer than we would like to respond.

Most of these papers are in the 100–120 day range. In some cases the lateness

plays to the advantage of the author. For example, a second referee might

be assigned after the first referee had recommended rejection. In addition,

for many of these papers, the Associate Editor prepares detailed comments

after the referee reports are received. We also provide detailed comments on a

DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12290

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1840 The Journal of Finance R

Tabl e I

Submission and Resubmission Timing

2014 2013

Month Submissions Resub Total Month Submissions Resub Total

Jan. 92 11 103 Jan. 90 6 96

Feb. 102 6 108 Feb. 84 8 92

Mar. 92 6 98 Mar. 97 12 109

April 97 9 106 April 96 16 112

May 104 8 112 May 102 19 121

June 83 9 92 June 107 12 119

July 103 11 114 July 119 8 127

Aug. 93 13 106 Aug. 98 8 106

Sept. 107 2 109 Sept. 101 12 113

Oct. 96 12 108 Oct. 103 13 116

Nov. 100 8 108 Nov. 73 9 82

Dec. 87 15 102 Dec. 106 9 115

Total 1156 123 1279 Total 1176 132 1308

Tabl e II

Author Affiliations of Published Articles

Affiliation Number of Authors

University of Chicago 4 1/4

University of Southern California 3 11/30

London Business School 3 1/12

New York University 3 1/12

Columbia University 2 1/12

Imperial College London 1 5/6

Stockholm School of Economics 1 7/12

Harvard University 1 1/2

London School of Economics 1 1/2

University of Notre Dame 1 1/2

University of Texas at Austin 1 1/2

Federal Reserve Bank of New York 1 1/3

University of Michigan 1 1/3

INSEAD 1 1/4

Washington University in St. Louis 11/4

Southern Methodist University 1 1/12

Arizona State University 1

Brigham Young University 1

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1

Stanford University 1

Temple University 1

University of Alberta 1

University of British Columbia 1

University of California at Los Angeles 1

University of Pennsylvania 1

University of Rochester 1

Boston College 5/6

(Continued)