Managing Editors’ Blog

The Managing Editor’s Report for 2022/23 is available here. Some highlights include

• The 2022 Impact Factor was 4.400 (4.300 excluding self-citations). While in previous years, the RF had a steady increase in its impact factor, the 2022 Impact Factor represents a 13% decrease on the 2021 Impact Factor, which is likely impacted by Clarivate’s change of approach in its measurement.

… Read more...

The lead article in Volume 23, Issue 6 of the Review of Finance is Governance Under the Gun: Spillover Effects of Hedge Fund Activism by Nickolay Gantchev, Oleg Gredil and Chotibhak Jotikasthira.  This paper finds that the threat of hedge fund activism spurs non-targeted companies to improve profitability and valuations, increase payout, and reduce capital expenditure and cash holdings. … Read more...

The lead article in Volume 23, Issue 5 of the Review of Finance is Credit Market Competition and Liquidity Crises by Elena Carletti and Agnese Leonello.  This paper finds that – contrary to common concerns – greater competition in the banking industry can reduce the risk of financial crises. … Read more...

The lead article in Volume 23, Issue 4 of the Review of Finance is Are US Industries Becoming More Concentrated? by Gustavo Grullon, Yelena Larkin, and Roni Michaely. This paper finds that industry concentration has increased substantially in the US over the last two decades.… Read more...

The lead article in Volume 23, Issue 3 of the Review of Finance is Do Credit Default Swaps Mitigate the Impact of Credit Downgrades? by Sudheer Chava, Rohan Ganduri, and Chayawat Ornthanalai.  When a firm’s debt is downgraded, its stock price falls, it subsequently raises less debt, and its cost of debt increases. … Read more...

The lead article in Volume 23, Issue 2 of the Review of Finance is Labor and Capital Dynamics under Financing Frictions by Ryan Michaels, Beau Page, and Toni Whited. This paper uses a new quarterly panel dataset to examine how financing frictions affect firms’ investment and hiring decisions. … Read more...

(This post is thanks to Editor Amiyatosh Purnanandam)

The lead article in Volume 22, Issue 6 of the Review of Finance is Complex Mortgages by Gene Amromin, Jennifer Huang, Clemens Sialm, and Edward Zhong. 

The Changing Nature of Mortgages

Mortgage products were extremely simple in the twentieth century.… Read more...

(This post is thanks to Editor Amit Goyal)

The lead article in Volume 23, Issue 1 of the Review of Finance is “Which Factors?” by Kewei Hou, Haitao Mo, Chen Xue, and Lu Zhang.

A factor model proposes why different stocks have different returns.… Read more...

The lead article in Volume 22, Issue 5 of the Review of Finance is A Theory of Costly Sequential Bidding by Kent Daniel and David Hirshleifer.  This paper explains why, in many real-life auctions such as M&A, bidders may engage in “jump-bids” – bid much more than needed to stay in the auction – when it might seem more prudent to bid the minimum possible increment

How to Bid in an Auction?… Read more...

(This post is thanks to Advisory Editor Andrew Ellul)

The lead article in Volume 22, Issue 4, of the Review of Finance is Labor Representation in Governance as an Insurance Mechanism by E. Han Kim, Ernst Maug and Christoph Schneider. This paper provides evidence that labor participation in firms’ governance enables risk sharing between employees and employers.… Read more...