Vote for your favorite finance journal here. Let's see if the JF really has lost its prestige or not:
http://www.allourideas.org/financejournalranking
Crowdsourcing of finance journals
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After 1547 votes, it seems to have come to somewhat of an equilibrium (votes are becoming marginally influential). First, there is some margin of error obviously, so it makes sense to cluster the rankings. If you cluster by k-means into 4 clusters you get:
A: JF, RFS, JFE
B: JFQA, RoF, JFI, RAPS, JFM, RCFS
C: MathFin, JCorpFin, FM, JEmpFin, FinAnJ
D: JPortfolioMgmt, JAppCorpFinby 5 clusters,
A: JF, RFS, JFE
A-: JFQA, RoF
B: JFI, RAPS, JFM, RCFS
C: MathFin, JCorpFin, FM, JEmpFin, FinAnJ
D: JPortfolioMgmt, JAppCorpFinNo journal has become the clear fourth journal, and the JF still wins out of the top 3. The new SFS journals are not anticipated to be superior to JFQA, though they likely have more option value, IMO.
What I like about this ranking is that it is based simply on perception, which is what we care about ultimately.
This analysis confirms our priors, so it is likely to be published in the JF soon.
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Regarding using perceptions, this is how the original journal rankings were done when this whole biz got going back in the 1970s. The first journal rankings in econ were based on surveys of what people thought. That came to be viewed as suspect, and with the 1986 JEL paper by Laband and somebody, there was the switch to focusing on citations, or more specifically in that case "impact-adjusted citations," and the game has been that ever since. This crowd-sourcing biz looks like a reversion to the earlier approach, although maybe taking on an aspect of the prediction markets stuff, albeit without people actually betting money.
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I can see how both methods are useful and both have limitations. Though the citation counts are more objective, the citations themselves are probably based on perception too (i.e., I'd rather position the contribution of my paper in relation to prior papers that were published in top journals, so I selectively cite papers in journals that I perceive to be highly ranked, even if what I consider to be the best prior paper is in a low ranked journal).
The survey method can also be biased if the respondent has any doubt about anonymity and fears either retribution or looking uninformed (i.e., I would vote for the journal that I think senior people would vote for).
The online survey is anonymous. I set up this survey and I can't identify IP addresses in any way, only the locations on the map (you can read the FAQs on the site if you don't believe me). And the respondents don't know who I am, so they won't cater to me anyway (they certainly wouldn't if they knew how lowly I really am). The downside is that people can vote more than once, or even if this was limited by IP address, a department could self promote more than another (say the hosting institution, or an institution that has published a lot in one particular journal). Depending on the university and whether IP addresses can be geographically identified, this can at least be identifed, but not corrected.
Nothing is perfect, but this is a very simple and easy survey that provides some broad implications, such as the relative position of the new SFS journals vs. JFQA.
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Here are the locations of the 2600 or so votes on the finance rankings. Most notable are East Lansing, MI, with over 9% of the votes and Athens, GA with almost 5% of the votes from a total of 79 locations. Is there a bias that we should expect from voters at Michigan State or UGA?
Format: City,Votes,%
"East Lansing, MI, US",253,9.64%
"Chicago, IL, US",194,7.39%
"New York, NY, US",155,5.91%
"Miami, FL, US",135,5.14%
"Athens, GA, US",128,4.88%
"Schuylkill Haven, PA, US",98,3.73%
US,82,3.13%
"Ann Arbor, MI, US",72,2.74%
"Princeton, NJ, US",71,2.71%
"Helsinki, FI",69,2.63%
"Rochester, NY, US",60,2.29%
CA,50,1.91%
"Elmhurst, NY, US",50,1.91%
"Taylors, SC, US",50,1.91%
"Melbourne, AU",47,1.79%
"New Haven, CT, US",45,1.71%
"Holb?k, DK",45,1.71%
CN,44,1.68%
"Central District, HK",42,1.60%
"State College, PA, US",41,1.56%
DE,40,1.52%
"Yarramalong, AU",38,1.45%
"Clifton Park, NY, US",37,1.41%
"Springfield, OR, US",35,1.33%
"Singapore, SG",34,1.30%
"Middletown, DE, US",34,1.30%
"Mississauga, ON, CA",31,1.18%
"Stillwater, OK, US",30,1.14%
"Philadelphia, PA, US",30,1.14%
"Amsterdam, NL",30,1.14%
"Gainesville, FL, US",29,1.11%
"Egremont, C9, GB",26,0.99%
"Stei?lingen, DE",25,0.95%
"Tilburg, NL",25,0.95%
"Potts Point, AU",23,0.88%
"Phoenix, AZ, US",22,0.84%
"Orange, CA, US",21,0.80%
"Evanston, IL, US",21,0.80%
"Powell, OH, US",21,0.80%
"Houston, TX, US",21,0.80%
"Bala Cynwyd, PA, US",20,0.76%
"Salt Lake City, UT, US",19,0.72%
"Cary, NC, US",19,0.72%
"London, H9, GB",19,0.72%
"Champaign, IL, US",19,0.72%
"Bloomington, IN, US",17,0.65%
"Iowa City, IA, US",17,0.65%
"Durham, NC, US",15,0.57%
"Rotterdam, NL",15,0.57%
"Bethesda, MD, US",14,0.53%
"Maidstone, G5, GB",14,0.53%
"Boston, MA, US",14,0.53%
"Cambridge, MA, US",13,0.50%
"Memphis, TN, US",13,0.50%
"College Station, TX, US",13,0.50%
"Toms River, NJ, US",9,0.34%
"Chapel Hill, NC, US",7,0.27%
"Morristown, NJ, US",7,0.27%
GB,6,0.23%
"Fort Lauderdale, FL, US",6,0.23%
"Metairie, LA, US",5,0.19%
"Buffalo, NY, US",5,0.19%
"Pasadena, CA, US",5,0.19%
"Spencer, IN, US",4,0.15%
"Oakland, CA, US",4,0.15%
"Munich, DE",3,0.11%
"Pullman, WA, US",3,0.11%
"Auburn University, AL, US",2,0.08%
"Saint Louis, MO, US",2,0.08%
"?cully, B9, FR",2,0.08%
"Montreal, QC, CA",1,0.04%
"Tucson, AZ, US",1,0.04%
"Karlsruhe, DE",1,0.04%
"Austin, TX, US",1,0.04%
"Stanford, CA, US",1,0.04%
"Glasgow, V2, GB",1,0.04%
"Urbana, IL, US",1,0.04%
"Lexington, KY, US",1,0.04%
"Kiev, UA",1,0.04%