The number of published articles has doubled over the past decade

It takes longer to produce a paper

Source: Kim, Morse and Zingales (2006)

Electronic submissions have had an enormous impact

Revise-and-resubmitJF rejection rates, 2003-07

Journal folkloreTrue or false?

• A publication in a bad journal has negative value.

• There is a “Rochester effect.”

• The RFS won’t publish corporate papers.

• Send a paper to the JFE first in order to get an assessment of its quality.

Sole authorship is disappearing

Source: Kim, Morse and Zingales (2006)

Co-authorship

• Co-authoring can lead to enormous collective action problems, but it almost always improves quality.

• Be careful of co-authoring with your advisor, or with someone of much higher stature. You’ll get no credit, or negative credit.

• However, having numerous co-authors is a positive signal of quality.

Selecting topics

• Try to be original. Study what no one else is studying.

• Take risks. Don’t write the nth paper on some topic; try to write the 1st.

• Pick topics that hold your own interest.

Impact: Publication counts

Source: Chung and Cox , JF (1990).

Impact: Citation counts

• 23% of all published articles receive 0 citations.

• The median number of citations per publication is 2.

• The 80-20 rule applies: the top 20% of papers receive 80% of the total citations.

Source: Ederington, JF (1979)

Details about citation counts

Source: Alexander and Mabry, JF (1994)

Impact: Recent trends(2008 data)

• H-index: h publications each with at least h citations.– 1. Shleifer (48)– 2. Barro (39)– 3. Tirole & Heckman (tied) (38)– 93. Fama (20)– 351. Jensen (13)

• SSRN downloads– 1. Jensen (355,533)– 2. Fama (247,853)– 3. Fernandez (155,799)– 25. Shleifer (52,539)

Changes in the refereeing process

• Heavier workloads / less quality control?

• More rounds

• Authors are rarely anonymous

Referee folklore(all somewhat true)

• You can disqualify someone as a referee by asking them for comments.

• Some referees get the same paper over and over again.

• You can appeal to the editor.

• Referees can save you from embarrassing mistakes.

What can we learn about referees?

Invest in becoming a good referee

• Build goodwill with the editor

• Impress the editor with your insight

• Impress the editor with your sense of fairness

• Sometimes the editor is more interested in reading your referee report than in reading the paper.

Where to submit?

How do you get promoted?

• Research quality– Quality ≠ quantity

• Teaching at an acceptable level

• Reputation and visibility– Campus seminar invitations– Major conference appearances

• Your referee is often in the audience• Good conference presentations lead to campus invitations

Strike while the iron is hot

Source: Kim, Morse and Zingales (2006)