FINANCE RESEARCH AT CANADIAN MANAGE MENT... BOOTH & HEATH

Finance Research at Canadian Management and Administration Faculties

Laurence Booth University of Toronto

Fred Heath University of Toronto

Abstract This research analyses the research productivity of

finance faculty members on staff at different Canadian Universities during 198819. It analyses their publications in fifteen finance journals and two Canadian Journals. The total number of journal publications is weighted according to 'quality', type of publication and number of authors. The research productivity of different finance departments is also reported.

Rbsumt Cette etude analyse la productivite' en recherche des

professeur(e)s de f inance rattache's aux diffe'rentes universite's Canadiennes pendant la pe'riode 1988-89. Elle repose sur l'e'tude de leurs publications a travers dix-sept revues scientifiques a caractPre financier, dont deux Canadiennes. Le nombre total de publications est ponde're' en fonction de la "qualite'", du type de publication, et du nombre dauteurs par publication. Enfin, I'e'tude fait aussi e'tat de la productivite' en recherche des diffe'rents de'partements de finance.

FINANCE RESEARCH AT CANADIAN MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION FAC U LTI ES1

"Well, do you want to see how you rank in the Book," inquired a colleague as I entered to discuss other matters. The Book in question was by J.L. Heck, Finance Literature Index, McGraw Hill Book Co., 1988, which includes a listing of all articles published in the major academic finance journals, since their inception to the end of 1986. This listing by volume is then followed by a cross- referenced author listing. Hence, in one source, it is possible to assess the research productivity of finance academics up to the end of 1986. Of course, the listing is not complete, it does not include contributions to books, monographs or 'non-finance' academic journals. However, it is a useful assessment of research productivity.

In this paper, we take the Book as our basic reference source to analyze the research productivity of current finance faculty members at Canadian universities. For the first time, this paper will allow individuals to assess the research productivity of different finance groups and the productivity of their peers. This assessment is based on current institutional affiliations, not where the individual was when the research was conducted. This may prove

unpopular, since academics are quite mobile and the Canadian academic finance group is small enough to specifically identify individuals. However, this information is valuable to any individual entering a Ph.D. programme or considering moving from one university to another. It thus represents important information on the current status of finance groups and individuals at Canadian universities.

II. CONTENT

The information that follows is based on faculty members on staff for academic year 1988-89. The basic reference source is the 1989 Directory of Full-Time Faculty Members in Management and Administrative Studies at Canadian Universit ies published by the Canadian Federation of Deans of Management and Administrative Studies, Deceinber 1988. All individuals referred to as finance professors are included in our basic data base, including those who have joint appointments such as finance and accounting, finance and economics etc.2 Alterations were only made where the listing was known to be incorrect, for example, one individual was listed at two Canadian universities!

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It is important to add that all the individuals included were ‘business school’ Faculty. The listing only included individuals listed in the CFDMAS directory. No economists from an economics department were included. Hence, for example Professor Jim Pesando of the University of Toronto’s economics department was excluded, despite the fact that he has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Finance and published widely in finance journals. Professor Pesando was excluded because he has no continuing appointment at Toronto’s Faculty of Management.

For each individual in the revised CFDMAS listing we included every publication listed in Heck’s Finance Literature Index except replies to comments. The latter were excluded, since an editor will only publish a comment if the original paper was in some sense misleading or incorrect. Hence, to include a reply along with the original entry is to double-count material that may be suspect. The entries in Heck were updated to include publications during calendar years 1987 and 1988.

The Journals covered by Heck are listed in Table 1. To avoid imposing our bias in journal selection we included all of Heck’s Journals in our data base. Note, however, that this

Gordon M Kraus A Cheng P Turnbull S Booth L Sealey C Roberts G Kryzanowski L Morgan I Grauer R Errunza V Korkie R Chua J Heinkel R Hull J Levi M Boyle P Schwab B Jobson D McCallum J Kwan C To M Aivazian V Perrakis S Halpern P Woodward R Doukas J Chateau J Barone-Adesi G Lusztig P

No. 16 18 10 10 11 9

16 11 5 7

10 10 16 7 9 7 6 8 8

11 7 7

11 5 6 8 6 5 4 5

Table 2

Overall Rankings

#1 12 16 10 7 3 4 3 3 4 5 4 6 3 5 2 3 4 6 5 5 4 1 6 3 5 0 2 1 4 4

4 1 0 2 6 3

11 8 1 0 3 1 7 2 4 3 2 2 1 1 3 6 3 2 1 2 2 2 0 0

Table 1 Journals Included in Analysis

I: Journal of Finance Journal of Financial Economics Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis

11: Journal of Banking and Finance Journal of International Money and Finance Canadian Journal of Economics Financial Management Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences Journal of Financial Research Financial Review Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

Journal of Bank Research Journal of Portfolio Management Financial Analysts Journal Journal of Business Finance and Accounting Journal of Financial Education

111. Journal of Futures Markets

#3 0 1 0 1 2 2 2 0 0 2 3 3 6 0 3 1 0 0 2 5 0 0 2 0 0 6 2 2 0 1

Journal Total

44 51 30 26 23 20 33 25 14 17 21 23 29 19 17 16 16 22 19 22 18 15 26 13 17 10 12 9

12 13

14.8 18.0 8.8 9.3 9.3 9.0

14.3 11.0 5.0 7.0 9.5 8.8

13.8 7.0 9.0 6.0 5.5 6.5 6.8 6.8 6.0 7.0 8.5 4.0 5.3 8.0 5.3 5.0 4.0 4.0

Author 11.8 9.3 7.5 8.5

10.0 7.5 7.8 5.8 4.5 5.0 6.5 6.0 7.8 4.0 6.5 5.5 4.0 4.5 4.5 9.2 3.8 4.0 5.5 4.0 3.2 5.8 4.0 4.5 2.3 3.0

Total Value 30.4 26.8 19.9 19.3 17.8 17.0 14.9 13.7 13.0 13.0 12.8 12.4 11.3 11.0 11.0 10.8 10.5 10.3 9.9 9.6 9.2 9.0 8.6 8.3 8.3 7.8 7.6 7.5 7.0 7.0

Average Weight

1.9 1.5 2.0 1.9 1.6 1.9 0.9 1.2 2.6 1.9 1.3 1.2 0.7 1.6 1.2 1.5 1.8 1.3 1.2 0.9 1.3 1.3 0.8 1.7 1.4 1 .o 1.3 1.5 1.8 1.4

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FINANCE RESEARCH AT CANADIAN MANAGEMENT ... BOOTH & HEATH

Table 2 (continued)

Toronto U.B.C. Alberta McGill Concordia Simon Fraser

Dalhousie Queen’s LaVal Manitoba Ottawa McMaster Waterloo H.E.C. Western W Laurier Carleton Brock York

CabPry

No.

77 54 35 29 35 19 29 23 12 14 17 13 12 7 8 6 6

10 4 5

#1 45 39 19 10 9

17 6 3 5 3 7 5 6 4 1 3 2 1 0 2

m a 1 #2 24 13 6 9

18 0

10 18 2 9 4 5 6 3 7 1 4 1 2 1

-

-

#3 8 2

10 10 8 2

13 2 5 2 6 3 0 0 0 2 0 8 2 2

Total

191 145 79 58 71 53 51 47 24 29 35 28 30 18 17 13 14 13 6

10

means that some top quality finance publications are ignored. For example, the Journal of Business and the American Economic Review, are excluded from the data base. The rationale for this is two-fold: firstly, finance is frequently defined as that body of knowledge published in finance journals. Second, once we extend the search process to include non-finance journals, we inevitably include non- finance work, since to do otherwise requires a subjective opinion as to whether or not a paper in a non-finance journal is finance or not. Since we are not prepared to impose this subjectivity on our data base, we accepted Heck’s classification of finance journals.

The only extension to Heck’s data base is to include Canadian materials. As many Canadian researchers have noticed, US journals may not be that interested in work on Canadian problems, unless there is some spillover interest for a US readership. This was the underlying motivation for founding the Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. Hence, we included all publications in CJAS and also all publications in the Canadian Journal of Economics. The latter journal was included, since the CJE was the only regular outlet for Canadian financial markets and banking materials prior to the publication of CJAS.

111. QUALITY WEIGHTINGS

Table 2 provides a ranking of the top 30 finance researchers and the top 20 finance groups at Canadian universities based upon the Journals in Table 1. This

69.3 50.5 30.0 28.5 30.8 17.8 26.8 21.3 11.3 13.3 12.8 11.3 10.5 6.5 8.0 6.0 4.3 9.5 4.0 4.5

Author

53.5 31.3 22.3 20.3 23.2 14.5 16.9 11.3 10.5 9.0

12.2 7.7 5.5 4.5 5.0 3.5 5.0 5.7 2.8 2.2

Total ’

116.1 78.8 41.8 40.6 40.3 38.9 27.3 21.9 20.3 18.3 16.1 14.0 12.5 11.5 11.0 8.0 7.3 7.2 4.3 4.2

V S

14 14 11 10 17 5 8 4 6

12 5 7 9 3

18 11 7 4 5 7

Sl v/n 1.5 1.5 1.2 1.4 1.2 2.0 0.9 I .o I .7 1.3 0.9 1.1 1 .o 1.6 1.4 I .3 1.2 0.7 1 . 1 0.8

f V I S

8.3 5.6 3.8 4.1 2.4 7.8 3.4 5.5 3.4 1.5 3.2 2.0 1.4 3.8 0.6 0.7 1 .o 1.8 0.9 0.6

ranking is based upon various qualitative weightings. The first column of Table 2 is a simple counting of publications without any adjustment for journal quality, type of paper or authorship. As such, this ranking imposes the qualitative weighting that all publications are equally valuable. Obviously, most academics would dispute this qualitative weighting: a sole authored paper i n the Journal of Financial Economics has not made the same contribution to research in finance as a triple authored comment in the Journal of Portfolio Management.

Implicitly, we all make qualitative adjustments when evaluating research productivity at the assessment stages of an academic’s career. The only problem is that these weightings differ across individuals. Hence, what follows is bound to be controversial. It reflects the biases of the authors and the reaction of a number of prominent people to these biases3. In Table Two we make three qualitative adjustments: for quality of journal, type of paper and number of authors.

For quality of Journal, we divided the journals into the three categories indicated in Table 1. A grade I journal was given a weighting of 3, down to a weighting of one for a grade 111 journal. The journal classification is qualitative and was arrived at by informal discussion with the editors and with colleagues. Many individuals will not agree with this qualitative ranking. It reflects an academic orientation, rather than an applied/professional orientation with a few journals at the top. However, the rankings were robust to alternative ‘reasonable’ specifications. Moreover, the number of publications in each of the categories is listed, so

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No.

Table 3

Rankings: 1979-1988

Journal #1 I #2

BOOTH & HEATH

3 3 4 3 3 5 2 5 3 3 4 6 2 5 4 3 1 1 5 0 2 3 4 1 2 1 1 2 2 2

6 8 3 2 7 2 9 1 3 2 0 1 4 1 3 2 6 4 3 2 2 0 0 2 0 2 4 1 1 2

Booth L Kryzanowski L Errunza V Sealey C Chua J Heinkel R Roberts G Korkie R Levi M Turnbull S Grauer R Kraus A Hull J Jobson D Kwan C Boyle P To M Gordon M Aivazian V Woodward R Doukas J Cheng P Barone-Adesi G Chateau J Eckbo E Patterson C Khoury N Halpern P Sick G White A

Journal Total Type

Toronto 50 20 24 6 114 45.8 U.B.C. 30 19 11 0 79 29.0 Concordia 33 9 16 8 67 29.5 McGill 23 8 8 7 47 22.5 Alberta 25 14 4 7 57 21.8 Calgary 27 5 10 12 47 24.8 Simon Fraser 10 8 0 2 26 10.0 Dalhousie 18 2 14 2 36 17.0 McMaster 12 6 6 0 30 10.5 Lava1 11 1 9 1 22 10.3 H.E.C. 8 1 7 0 17 8.0 Ottawa 11 3 5 3 22 9.8 Waterloo 6 3 3 0 15 5.5 Queen's 7 1 2 4 11 6.3 W Laurier 6 2 4 0 14 4.3 Carleton 10 1 1 8 13 9.5 Manitoba 9 0 4 5 13 7.0 Western 5 2 1 2 10 5.0 Brock 4 0 2 2 6 4.0 York 5 2 1 2 10 4.5

No. . #1 #2 #3

11 11 10 5

16 7

13 9 6 5 6 7 8 8 7 5 7 5

10 8 6 3 4 4 2 5 6 3 3 4

Total Author V

34.0 69.5 17.9 45.3 21.2 37.8 15.8 33.1 14.8 30.5 15.7 24.1 7.5 20.5 7.9 15.0 5.5 12.5 6.5 11.8 5.0 11.0 6.2 10.2 4.0 10.0 6.5 9.3 5.0 7.3 5.7 7.2 7.0 6.8 2.5 5.0 2.8 4.3 2.2 4.2

alue S

14 14 17 10 11 8 5 4 9

12 18 7 3 6 7 4 5

11 5 7

#3 2 0 3 0 6 0 2 3 0 0 2 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 2 6 2 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 0

Staff vln vls 1.4 5.0 1.5 3.2 1.1 2.2 I .4 3.3 1.2 2.8 0.9 3.0 2. I 4.1 0.8 3.8 1 .o 1.4 1.1 I .o 1.4 0.6 0.9 1.5 1.7 3.3 I .3 1.5 1.2 I .o 0.7 1.8 0.8 1.4 1 .o 0.5 1.1 0.9 0.8 0.6

Journal Total

23 25 21 13 29 19 26 20 15 13 14 20 16 19 18 13 15 11 23 10 12 9

12 8 6 9

12 8 8

10

Type 9.3

11.0 9.5 5.0

13.8 7.0

12.0 7.8 5.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 6.8 6.0 4.5 7.0 5.0 8.3 8.0 5.3 3.0 4.0 4.0 2.0 3.5 5.3 3.0 3.0 4.0

Author 10.0 5.8 6.5 4.5 7.8 4.0 5.9 5.5 5.0 4.0 4.0 3.5 5.5 4.5 3.8 3.5 4.0 3.5 4.5 5.8 4.0 2.5 2.3 3.5 2.0 5.0 3.5 2.0 2.0 2.0

Total Value 17.0 13.7 12.8 12.0 11.3 11.0 11.0 10.9 10.3 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 9.9 9.2 9.0 9.0 8.0 7.9 7.8 7.6 7.5 7.0 6.5 6.0 6.0 5.8 5.5 5 .O 5.0

Average Weight

1.5 I .2 1.3 2.4 0.7 1.6 0.8 1.2 1.7 2.0 1.7 1.4 1.3 I .2 1.3 1.8 1.3 1.6 0.8 1 .o 1.3 2.5 1.8 1.6 3.0 1.2 1 .o 1.8 I .7 1.3

RCSAICJAS 46 DECEMBRE 1 DECEMBER 1990

3 2 2 2 2 0 2 2 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 I I 0 I 0 I 1 0

BOOTH & HEATH

2 2 1 3 2 5 1 0 1 I 4 I 1 1 I 0 3 0 0 2 2 I I 1 0

Table 4

Rankings: 1984-88

Journal Journal Total

1 1 12 12 I4 10 13 1 1 I I 12 10 10 9 6 5 8 8 5 5 4 4 4

10 3 3 4 7 4 7 5 4

Total Value

9.5 7.6 7.0 6.7 6.5 6.5 6.0 5.8 5.4 5.0 5.0 4.9 4.5 4.0 4.0 4.0 3.5 3.5 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.2 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 2.8 2.5 2.5

Average Weight

I .9 I .3 1.8 I .o I .6 I .3 1.2 I .o 1 . 1 I .3 I .o I .2 2.3 2.0 1.3 1 .o 1.8 0.9 1 . 1 1 . 1 0.8 0.6 3.0 3.0 I .5 I .o I .o 0.7 I .3 0.6

No. Author #1 I #2 Type 5.0 5.3 4.0 7.0 4.0 5.0 5.0 5.5 4.0 4.0 5.0 2.8 2.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 2.0 4.0 3.0 2.3 3.3 4.0 I .o 1 .o 2.0 3.0 3.0 3.3 2.0 4.0

#3 0 2 0 0 1 0 1 3 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 2 4 I 0 0 0 0 2 2 0 4

Booth L Doukas J Barone-Adesi G Kryzanowski L Grauer R Heinkel R Hull J Errunza V Kwan C White A To M Korkie R Cheng P Boyle P Kraus A Khoury N Turnbull S Jog V Woodward R Patterson C Johnson L Roberts G Blazenko G Eckbo E Sealey C Zechner J Chua J Rahnian A Jalilvand Riding A

5 6 4 7 4 5 5 6 5 4 5 4 2 2 3 4 2 4 3 3 4 5 1 I 2 3 3 4 2 4

4.5 4.0 2.3 3.3 2.5 2.5 3.0 3.5 2.6 2.0 2.5 2.5 1.5 1.5 I .5 2.0 I .5 2.5 2.3 3.0 4.0 2. I I .o 1 .o I .5 I .3 2.5 I .8 I .o 2.5

0 0

No. Total Author ournal #2 12 14 6 4 0 4 8 3 6 6 I 2 I 2 5 3 1 2 1 0

ilue S

14 17 14 I I 5

10 12 8 9

18 4 7 6 3 4 5 5 7 7

I I

Sl vln I .3 I .o I .4 I .2 2.0 0.9 1 . 1 1.2 0.9 I .2 0.8 0.9 1 . 1 I .7 0.7 0.9 1.5 1 .o 1 .o 0.5

'f vls 2. I I .7 I .5 I .4 2.8 1 . 1 0.8 I .o 0.9 0.4 I .5 0.8 0.9 I .7 I .2 0.7 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.1

Total V

29.6 28. I 21.0 15.8 14.0 10.6 9.0 8.3 8.0 7.0 6.0 5.7 5.3 5.0 4.8 3.5 3.0 2.0 1 .o 1 .o

#3 2 8 0 2 I 6 0 4 0 0 7 2 4 0 I 1 1 0 0 2

#1 23 27 15 13 7

12 8 7 9 6 8 6 5 3 7 4 2 2 1 2

9 5 9 7 6 2 0 0 3 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

53 51 39 31 19 20 16 10 21 12 9

12 6 7

14 7 3 4 2 2

21.8 24.3 15.0 10.5 7.0

11.5 8.0 7.0 7.5 6.0 8.0 6.0 4.3 3.0 6.0 4.0 2.0 2.0 1 .o 2.0

14.3 16.7 8.2 7.3 5.0 6.3 4.5 5.8 4.0 3.5 5.0 2.8 5.0 2.0 2.9 2.0 3.0 1 .o 0.5 1 .o

Toronto Concordia U.B.C. Alberta Simon Fraser McGill Lava1 Calgary McMaster H.E.C. Carleton Ottawa Queen's Waterloo Dalhousie Manitoba Brock W Laurier York Western

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Table 5

Concentration Analysis

Toronto UBC Alberta McGill Concordia Simon Fraser

TOP 6

Overall 21.5 14.6 7.7 7.5 7.5 7.2

66.0

1979-88

10. I 5.4

63.0

1983-88 15.7 1 1 . 1 8.3 5.6

14.9 7 .4

63.0

that different weights can be imposed on the classes as a whole by the reader if so desired.

The second qualitative adjustment was to weight papers at one, notes at one-half and comments at one-quarter. Notes and comments are frequently full-length papers that the journal editor feels do not make a sufficient contribution to be published in their entirety. Sometimes this assessment is just the luck of the refereeing game and the published note ends up as long and as substantial as many papers. However, on average, t h e research contribution of a comment is less than that of a note, which in turn, is less than that of a full-length paper. This adjustment alone is indicated in the column marked Type in Tables 2-4.

The final qualitative adjustment was to divide through by the number of authors; that is to essentially weight sole authored papers at one, joint authored papers at one-half, etc. The assumption being that co-authors share the effort and the reward equally. T h e result of these qua l i ty adjustments is to give a co-authored Journal of Finance

paper a weight of 1 .S and a sole authored Finuncial Anul-vst ./our-nul paper a weight of 1.0. This adjustment alone is indicated in the column marked Author in Tables 2-4.

To return to Table 2, columns five, six, and seven reflect the adjustments for the three factors referred to. Column eight reflects the effect of all three adjustments combined and column nine an average weight per publication, which re f lec ts the average “qual i ty” of each individual’s publication. To illustrate, the two outstanding finance researchers in Canada are Professor Myron Gordon of the University of Toronto and Professor Alan Kraus of the University of British Columbia. Gordon has sixteen publications in Table I journals and Kraus eighteen. After journal weighting for quality and type, Gordon has 43 and 14.8 points and Kraus 51 and 18 points respectively. On these criteria alone, Kraus would be at the top of the list. However, more of Kraus’s work involves other authors, so that Gordon jumps ahead in the overall ranking, reflecting his higher average ‘quality’.

I n assessing this final quali ty ranking, i t must be reemphasized that this ranking reflects a mechanical application of a “reasonable” weighting scheme. Individuals who do not accept this weighting scheme can look at each column and draw their own conclusions. In this regard, columns five, six and seven can be read as journal article equivalents, after adjusting fo r the lower weighting accorded some journals, notes and comments, and multi- authored papers. Hence, contrasting each total with the simple journal count in column one gives a good idea of an individual’s output. However, this quality ranking does not measure impact on the field or reputation which would require an even more qualitative assessment of citations and/or other criteria.

Table 6

Journal Popularity

Journal of Finance Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis Journal of Business Finance and Accounting Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences Financial Management Journal of Banking and Finance Financial Analysts Journal Financial Review Journal of Financial Research Journal of Financial Economics Journal of Portfolio Management Journal of International Money & Finance Canadian Journal of Economics Journal of Money Credit & Banking Journal of Bank Research Journal of Futures Markets Journal of Financial Education Number of Publications

< 1979 47.2 20.9 10 0 5.4 2.7 I .8 0 .9 0 .9 5 .4 0 0 0 0.9 3.6 0 0 I10

% 1979-83

23.8 14.2 11.6 0 9.5 6.8 2 .0 3.4 4 .8 4 .8 4.1 0.7 5.4 5.4 3.4 0 0 147

1984-88 17.4 7.6 7.0

19.8 4.7 4.7 8.7 7.0 4.7 I .2 4.7 5.8 I .7 1.2 0.6 3.5 0 172

Initial Publication

I946 I966 I974 I984 I972 1977 I945 1966 1978 1974 I974 I982 I967 I969 1970 1981 1972

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FINANCE RESEARCH AT CANADIAN MANAGEMENT ...

IV. RANKINGS

BOOTH & HEATH

V. CONCLUSIONS

Table 2 includes the “hot 30.” The list was curtailed at 30, simply because i t is a nice round number and both individual and university rankings could fit on one page! Note that to get on this list required at least two journal articles. The university rankings are particularly interesting. Toronto and U.B.C. are clearly ahead, but Simon Fraser does very well. Although SFU faculty members have only 19 journal articles, they are of very high quality, reflecting the research productivity of Professors Pao Cheng and Rob Grauer. Hence, SFU jumps from a count rank of eight to a quality ranking that puts it in a pack of schools jostling for third place. On a per capita quality rank, SFU would be second. However, ranking on the basis of per capita quality is inadequate, since it suffers all of the drawbacks of undertaking new investments to maximize the rate of return on investment! Furthermore, it penalizes universities with cross-appointed faculty.

In Tables three and four are the same rankings reflecting publications over the last ten years (1979- 1988) and the last five years (1984-88). These rankings are important. since the overall rankings may be biased, since established programmes have individuals on board who have been productive over long periods of time. Toronto and UBC are still largely on top. However, their “dominance” is clearly diminished. I n particular. over the last five years the Concordia finance group has outpublished any other group at a Canadian university and ranks second in the overall quality index just behind Toronto and above U.B.C.

In Table five is a concentration analysis of research productivity. Overall, Toronto and UBC have accounted for 21.5% and 14.6% respectively of the total “quality” of finance research produced by individuals currently at Canadian universities. However, those percentages have dropped to 18.5% and 15.7%, and 12.1% and 1 I . l % respectively over the last ten and five years respectively. Moreover, this adjustment has occurred largely within the top six finance groups, since the proportion accounted for by other finance groups has remained reasonably constant. The relative decline of Toronto and UBC can essentially be explained by the rise of Concordia, since other shares are almost constant.

In Table six is an analysis of the relative popularity of journals as an outlet for research. Before 1979, 73.5% of all research published by individuals currently at Canadian universities appeared in the Journal of Finance, JFQA or JFE, the three commonly regarded most prestigious journals. For the last five year period, the same three journals only accounted for 26% of published Canadian research. Partly this is explained by the introduction of more specialised journals such as CJAS, JlMF, JFM, and JPM. However, partly this also refects increased market share by journals such as FAJ, FR, and JFR. It can be debated at length as to whether this change in journal popularity reflects a deterioration in the average quality of the research produced at Canadian universities or a more competitive market for journals.

The information i n Tables 2-6 is plain to see and individuals are free to make their own assessments of the data. However, the strength of the different finance groups at Canadian universities is often crucially dependent on only a few individuals. At Toronto, for example, Professor Gordon is close to final retirement and his departure would seriously weaken Toronto’s score, although the rankings would be unchanged. Similarly, several individuals are listed in the CFDMAS directory as ‘on leave’, some of these listings are known to be incorrect and reflect wishful thinking on the part of the compilers of the listing. However, the departure of several of the others would change the rankings in Tables 2-5. At this stage, i t would be speculative to try and make such adjustments.

The rankings also reflect the research productivity of existing faculty, that is where the individuals are now and not where they were when they did their research. Hence, UBC is seriously weakened by the loss of among others Professors Brennan and Schwarz. However, the objective of this paper is to assess the research productivity of existing institutions, not how good they were in the past. Hence, we feel that the data contained in this paper is a good indication of what is currently going on in the finance groups at Canadian universities.

Finally, the information in the respective tables should be of interest to those sitting on promotion and tenure committees. Although the tables do not include all research publications ie., it excludes publications in other journals, research monographs etc., it is interesting that the ‘hot 30’ averaged 3.7 finance publications over the last five year period (1984- 1988). Moreover, column eight divided by three gives the number of sole authored journal of finance equivalents per researcher. Over the 1984-88 period the ‘hot 30’ averaged 1.42 sole authored Journal of Finance equivalents or 0.28 per year. This puts into perspective the commonly expressed tenure standard of ‘good’ universities of one Journal of Finance type paper per year up to tenure. Having said all this, we retire to try and avoid the brickbats that might bc coming our way.

-

ENDNOTES

I Apologia There are mony minor methodological questions concerning our approach. These inc I udc : -journal rml ing - value of joint iiuthnrship - value of notes and cnninients. It is our contention that changes l o these factors would have only niinnr impact on Ihe rankings. On the other hand, .iourniil brlection and faculty meniher selection have pntcntially large impacta. In these cases. we admit to arbitrary imp)sition of convenieill rules which we believe are defensible. Moreover, we have tried to prebent the data in a form that allows unbundling our biases. Finally. we npnlogize for any inadvertent errors in transcribing the data frnni our two main sources. It is always possible the Canadian finance equivalent of John Doe may receive credit for J(ames) Doe. or not receive credit for J.X. Doe. Note that this automatically excludes some individuals such as Professor W. Ziemba o f U.B.C. and Professor S. Sethi o f Toronto. who have made significant contributions to finance research. since their appointments are in non-finance departments of Canadian Business Schonls.

3 Several evaluations based on alternative qualitative criteria were conducted. The evaluations in the paper result from the interaction o f several individuals.

2

RCSAICJAS 49 DECEMBRE / DECEMBER 1990