Some new evidence here : https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3757983
TL:DR – extremely. The USA is massivly overrepresented compared to the diversity of authors submitting to journals, while China in particular is massibly underrepresented. This disparity is exceptionally obvious in ABS 4* journals, seen as the “leading” journals.
Recently I submitted a paper to a leading journal. They had incredibly specific requirements for formatting for submitted papers, and numerous templates in Word, SciWord, Latex and so on for the use thereof. Being a leading journal and wanting to maximise the scant chance they might not bin it after a good bellylaugh, I spent some time formatting columns, table titles etc to their specifications. Why? Continue reading
At the top of the tree in academia are Personal or Chaired Professors. Are all created equal? Continue reading
Being the editor of the journal gives you a perspective on the publishing process that is not available to the majority of academic researchers. One of the issues that strikes you is that there is an enormous volume of material seeking a home. Into this gap have come open access journals, new journals from existing publishers, but also a host of predatory journals. Unfortunately, some Irish academics are either falling prey or worse are deliberately seeking out publication opportunities in these predatory journals.
We are all aware of how markets react around major macroeconomic announcements – unemployment, interest rate changes or not, housing starts etc. There is a large research body on how the US equity market reacts to the US announcements but less so on how international markets react to these. This paper tries to fill that gap. It has been published in Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance
Abstract
“Given the dominant role the U.S. economy plays in global trade, we explore how U.S. macroeconomic surprises affect stock markets in ten major developed economies as well as in China and India. We do not find strong enough evidence to conclude that U.S. macro shocks materially and consistently influence equity returns and volatilities in the economies studied. Consistent with previous research, it appears that only in few markets are return levels materially influenced by macro surprises generated in the U.S. Also, only a small number of macro shocks seem to be of any consistent significance. For returns levels, inflation, productivity, consumer confidence, and retail sales seem to matter. At the same time, condi- tional volatilities appear to be influenced by inflation, retail sales, durable goods, industrial production, consumer confidence, gross domestic product, and trade balance surprises. Finally, our exploratory anal- ysis indicates that the degree of bilateral trade connectedness may partially explain the extent to which macroeconomic surprises are transmitted across countries.”
An empirical study of multiple direct international listings
Companies cross list on multiple stock exchanges. We know this. Why do some companies crosslist on multiple exchanges however? This paper tries to get to the bottom of this. It has been published in Global Finance Journal.
Abstract
“In this study, we examine the multiple direct foreign-listing by analyzing characteristics of listing firms as well as hosting and home countries. Our results show that listing premium increases over time, but this premium diminishes as the firm lists in additional foreign markets. Multiple listing is closely related to the firm’s ability to list, but does not translate into better future or higher returns. Additionally, we find no evidence to support the bonding hypothesis. We conclude that firms list in additional foreign countries to take advantage of higher valuation to raise capital more cheaply, rather than to benefit from a better legal environment.”
So the crisis is now four years old, with the falling into recession of Ireland in september 2008 sounding the clear warning that there were rough times ahead.Somehow or other I (and others) were winkled out of our ivory towers to explain (or not) what was going on. There are pro and con on whether and how academics should engage with the public debates (my view is we should and should do so however we feel most comfortable), but regardless of the media, the day job goes on.
So in the last four years I have it seems published 21 peer reviewed papers, uploaded 30 working papers to SSRN presented over 40 conference presentations, examined 4 phd theses as external examiner, put 5 students through as PhD, created a masters programme which has graduated 300+ graduates, taken over the editing of two journals, edited one book, started (and stopped) a spinout, taught 14 modules at undergrad and 10 at postgraduate level, run 4 conferences with over 1000 delegates, sat on three US tenure committees as (virtual) external and formed a close working relationship with the london precious metal community.
And then there is the journalism which i think is part day job – i try to write informed by recent research. In the last year alone I have filed 25,000 words with the Examiner. What have I said? See the wordle below
So, I today signed off on the agreement to be the new editor of another Elsevier journal, International Review. Of Financial Analysis (IRFA). It's a pretty decent journal, ranked in the top 40 by a recent study; it was ranked as “internationally excellent” in the 2008 Aston rankings; as “highly regarded” in the 2010 Association of Business Schools journal ranking ; as “top international” in thr 2010 Cranfield School of Management list; for mere details see http://www.harzing.org with the usual caveat that rankings are not the only or even the most desirable indicator of the quality and impact of a journal.
Now, I am aware that elsevier raises the hackles of many with regard to the debate on open access versus pay walls, but that's a debate that I'd like to avoid at the present. What I am interested in is the views of people on how we might make the articles forthcoming in IRFA more accessible and interesting. elsevier have their views on the article of the future- which of these would you be interested in seeing rolled out? For example, should video abstracts be available freely viewable? Would people be interested in a twitter feed of articles? Whst about an editorial,video, of each issue? Your ideas are sought!
As people may know I am among my other tasks a journal editor, editor of Research In International Business and Finance, published by Elsevier. And a fine journal it is…Elsevier have introduced the ‘Article of the Future’ concept recently, which aims to expand scholarly articles from simple static print to be a richer and hopefully more meaningful multimedia enabled communication. See here for more information.
As part of this development, RIBAF will now require any paper accepted for publication to be accompanied by either a short video presentation (such as the author(s)s explaining the motivation or importance or interesting aspects of the paper, a video presentation of any theoretical or econometric findings (such as a visualisation of how a volatility surface changes or simulation of a model as parameters and assumptions change) or a presentation of the paper (such as a keynote or powerpoint slideset). Humans are visual creatures if a picture is worth a thousand words, then how much is a video worth? More seriously, academic publications are in all essentials unchanged since the early 19th century – there are ongoing massive debates on peer review, charging, access and so forth, but we have as an academy given little thought to how the base element of how we present the work may take full advantage of modern ICT.
Thoughts welcome!
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Brian M. Lucey 