Journal of Banking & Finance

Retrospective Evaluation (1976 - 1996)

1. Introduction

2. Background Information on the JBF

3. Evaluation of the Collected Data

4. Future Outlook

Since its founding in 1976 the JBF has become a respected and well-known academic journal in the banking and finance community. During the past twenty years JBF published nearly 870 quality papers within the area of capital and institutional markets, by authors from all over the world. Today, according to Zivney and Reichenstein (1974), the JBF is recognized as one of the major finance journals in the banking and capital market area.

In the mid-seventies, when the JBF was in its planning stage, finance was passing through one of its most creative and innovative stages. These years were marked by ground-breaking analytical contributions in risk-management of asset pricing theory, the valuation of derivative assets and the development of continuous time methods and models. The banking literature at that time was relatively underdeveloped and concentrated, for the most part on institutional problems and asset management issues. The JBF intended to merge analytical approaches to financial modelling with these banking issues. Robert Merton's pioneering article on the application of modern option pricing theory to the problem of deposit insurance, the lead article in JBF's very first issue, clearly set the tone for JBF's future.

In 1996, the JBF published its 20th volume. To celebrate this occasion, the editors of the JBF decided to compile a cumulative index issue (21.9) of articles and authors that appeared in the journal over the 1976 - 1996 period and a special anniversary issue (21.11/12) of contributed papers. In order to provide the JBF reader with an informative retrospective view, the editors, for issue 21.9, also collected and analysed data on:

1. citations in the Social Science Citation Index;
2. types of papers, special issues versus regular papers;
3. relative frequency of papers per topic area;
4. affiliations and geographical breakdown of the contributing authors during these years.

To provide some background, the journal's major editorial policies, review procedures, special issues and award policies over the past 20 years are described in the second section of this paper. An evaluation of the collected data is then presented in section three. Finally, section four, provides a summary of the aforementioned data and sets out JBF's future editorial policy. This issue concludes with the cumulative author and subject indexes.
 

When the JBF began, its goals were two-fold: the first was to bridge the intellectual gap between banking and mainstream finance by providing an outlet for scholarly research on financial intermediation theory, institutions and markets. Its second goal was to foster a dialogue between researchers (both academic and non-academic) and those responsible for operating and making policy decisions in private and public financial institutions and corporations. The need for such a journal and the precise ways in which these goals could be attained were the subject of discussions during two years prior to the publication of JBF's inaugural issue.

The original Statement of Purpose also implied a third goal which evolved, fairly quickly, from the international orientation of JBF's Editorial Board. The distinctly European flavor of many of JBF's constituents complemented and influenced the dominant supply of papers from North America in those early days. This coincided with the increase in number and quality of European and other non-American business schools and research-oriented faculties in finance and allied departments. The tone for these international contributions was set in the very first issue in an article by Stapleton & Burke (England) on European tax systems, an article by Levasseur (France) on liquidity management and articles by Altman et al., Merton, and Guy (USA) and Aharony and Loeb (Israel).

Throughout the past twenty years, JBF's Editors, working in close co-operation with the Editorial Board, have made every effort to maintain a proper balance among the journal's `three pillars': banking, finance and regulatory policy, while at the same time retaining an emphasis, when appropriate, on the international context. The Statement of Purpose of the Journal of Banking and Finance as of the year 1997 and described on the inside back cover of each issue, is:

`... The aim of the Journal of Banking and Finance is to provide an outlet for the increasing flow of scholarly research concerning financial institutions and the money and capital markets within which they function. The emphasis will primarily be on applied and policy oriented research. The Journal is thus intended to improve communications between, and within, the academic and other research communities and those members of financial institutions, both private and public, national and international, who are responsible for operational and policy decisions ...'

From its early days, the JBF has been using the costly, time-consuming, but high quality reviewing process of double-blind refereeing. The standard policy of the JBF is that a paper is only accepted for publication once both referees have expressed a favorable opinion of the paper or when a dispute arises, a third editorial board member or executive editor's review is acquired.

Editorial Board comments have also proved to be helpful, and in some cases essential to produce papers that meet JBF's standards of high quality. In view of the increasing high percentage, currently almost 33%, of submissions from authors of non-English speaking countries the JBF is following a policy of requiring, when needed, a thorough and costly editing process.

The median turn-around time on submissions is currently less than three months, while the total number of submissions received amounts to almost 400 papers per year of which approximately 17% are eventually accepted for publication in the JBF.

The Board of Associate Editors includes well-known senior researchers from the major centers of excellence inside and outside the USA. Board members are selected on the basis of their research record and their affiliation to the journal. In contrast with most other scholarly finance journals, the Board of Associate Editors of the JBF has always had a fairly strong representation from the corporate/banking sector, which supports the journal's empirical orientation and makes it interesting for readers in these sectors. Today the members of the Associate Editorial Board of the JBF are 67% from North America, 28% Europe and 5% Asia.

Throughout the past 20 years the associate editors have proved extremely valuable to the journal's development, not only in serving as referees and authors but also by actively soliciting new and innovative manuscripts for the journal and, in some cases, serving as guest editors for Special Issues. Apart from the aforementioned Editorial Board, numerous well-known scholars in the field have been important contributors to the JBF, by serving as referees or guest editors for Special Issues.
 

In an effort further to focus JBF's output and to accommodate the increasing flow of high quality submissions, the editors, along with several dedicated scholars, introduced the concept of `Studies in Banking and Finance' in 1985. Initially these Studies were published as a supplement to the JBF. As of 1989, however, the `Special Studies' concept was incorporated within JBF's publication schedule as stand-alone Special Issues. Special Studies published from 1985 to 1989 are:

• ``Monetary assets and inflation-induced distortions of the national accounts'', volume 1, edited by J. Mortensøn (1985)
• ``Economic policy and national accounting in inflationary conditions'', volume 2, edited by J. Mortensøn (1985)
• ``The international debt problem'', volume 3, edited by A. Saunders (1986)
• ``Adjusting to shocks: A north - south perspective'', volume 4, edited by P. Ferri and G. Ragazzi (1987)
• ``Essays in financial economics in memory of Irwin Friend'', volume 5, edited by M. Sarnat and G. Szegö (1988)
• ``Essays on risk aversion and insurance'', volume 6, edited by M. Sarnat (1988)
  ``International business failure prediction models', volume 7 edited by E. Altman (1988)

While the early special issues/studies were very specialized, recently the JBF has published several more general issues. Table 1 provides an overview of all JBF's Special Issues published during 1984 - 1996.

Special issues published through the Journal of Banking and Finance have been influential on the literature. According to the Social Science Citation Index from the year of publication through 1996, the special issue on: `The Efficiency of Financial Institutions' (1993) received 92 citations, the special issue on: `Deposit Insurance Reform' (1991) received 57 citations and the special issue on: `International Models of Corporate Failure Prediction' (1984) received 52 citations. More recently published special issues (for obvious reasons) have not been cited as much yet. It is worthwhile mentioning however, that the special issue on: `the Role of Capital in Financial Institutions' (1995, mailed in July 1995), through 1996 received 24 citations.
 

Since 1986, in order to stimulate and honor the work of scholars within the field of banking and finance, the Journal of Banking and Finance, in cooperation with the European Finance Association, each year grants the Iddo Sarnat Annual Memorial Award to the author(s) of the best paper published in the JBF during the preceding volume. In recent years junior authors with the position of Associate Professor or the equivalent non academic position have been given preference. Each year the prize of US$ 2,000, partially financed by the EFA, is awarded during the European Finance Association Annual Meeting.

So far the following papers have been awarded the Iddo Sarnat Annual Memorial Award:

During the past 20 years the Banking and Finance area has grown and expanded with numerous `new' journal initiatives, creating healthy competition for good papers. Like the other older and established journals in the Finance area, such as the Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Finance, authors valued JBF as a preferred outlet for their quality output. During the past 20 years JBF's flow of submissions has only seemed to increase, enabling the JBF to expand its total number of published papers thus maintaining the accepted paper backlog at a reasonable level. The increase in the number of papers published during the past 20 years is apparent:

• 131 papers in the first 5 volumes
• 167 papers in volumes 6 - 10
• 233 papers in volumes 11 - 15
• 337 papers in volumes 16 - 20

To provide information on the nature of the research published in the JBF, Table 2 lists the frequency of papers published by topic area over the last 20 volumes.

The relative frequency of the papers has been calculated on the basis of the allocated JEL (Journal of Economic Literature) codes per paper. For papers published in issues 1.1 - 17.6 the editors assigned the relevant JEL code(s) per paper. Each of the 868 published papers in the JBF has been allocated one or two JEL codes.

In order to count the relative frequency of papers published in the JBF during a five-year period the weighed JEL Code(s) per paper were divided by the total number of papers during that 5-year period.

The relative frequency of subject area `Banks, other Depository Institutions; Mortgages' (JEL code G21) has been remarkably stable during the first 15 volumes. However during the last 5-year period there was a slight decline in the papers published in this area in favor of ` Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies' (G14) and `International Financial Markets' (G15). The increase in these two areas is largely attributable to the special issues published in these areas; issue 16.1 on European Capital Markets and issue 18.4 on European Derivative Markets, see also section 2.3. Other areas are of relatively small proportions and appear stationary.

Table 2 supports Zivney & Reichenstein's (1994) conclusion that the JBF can be seen as the major finance journal specializing in the capital markets and financial institutions area.
 

The total number and variety (affiliations and geographical spread) of authors in the JBF is large:

• 70% of the authors is affiliated with Universities, 10% to Governmental Organisations such as the Federal Reserve Board, 7% to another form of higher eduction (non University), 7.7% to financial research institutes or central banks, and 3% is affiliated to international organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank. There remains in the miscellaneous category another 1.5%.
• Figure 1 shows the relative figures of the geographical spread amongst the total number of published papers during:
  • volume 1 - 20 (white)
  • volume 15 - 20 (grey)
  JBF distinguishes itself from the mainstream journals in finance, which tend to have a large US author base of more than 90%. Figure 1 clearly shows the number of authors stemming from the US, although increasing during the last 6 volumes, has been always less than 70%. Papers published within the JBF stem from all over the world.

Fig. 1. Author breakdown (relative figures), Journal of Banking and Finance.

Over the years the readership of the JBF has changed considerably. In the beginning, readership consisted almost exclusively of academic institutions and some central banks.

Today, nearly 26% of all institutional subscribers belongs to the corporate and financial sector. Institutional subscribers are for example National/Central Banks, Development Banks, Economic and Financial Research Institutes and Treasury Departments of large Corporations (insurance companies for example). The remainder of the institutional subscribers are university libraries. Figure 2 shows the geographical spread of the total group of institutional subscribers, divided into corporate and university subscribers.
 

Fig. 2. Geographical spread of institutional subscribers, 1996.

While the university subscribers are more equally spread amongst Europe and the US, the corporate subscribers group is largely represented in Western Europe. In addition JBF's personal subscriber base increased substantially over the past 5 years.
 

Although the JBF is recognized as one of the top journals within the capital markets and financial institutions area (Zivney & Reichenstein 1994), its true scholarship value cannot be solely determined from the available citation numbers as listed within the SSCI.

In comparison to other mainstream finance journals, the JBF has a fairly large number of `corporate' subscribers. As corporate readers tend to use articles for purposes other than academic research, the number of citations to JBF articles stemming from this group is relatively low. The journal's impact factor (as measured through SSCI) of 10th position in finance, therefore underestimates its true reputation. Of the citations the JBF receives, 55% stem from the mainstream journals in finance such as JF, JMCB, JIMF and JFR.

Zivney & Reichenstein (1994) furthermore conclude in their survey that the total number of citations from JBF articles to the top 60 finance journals is approximately 65%.
 

At the time when the Studies in Banking and Finance (see also section 2.3) were incorporated into the JBF in 1989, JBF was publishing 900 pages per annum. The entire backlog of accepted papers for the Special Studies, plus the increasing number of submissions to the JBF, enabled the JBF to expand its total number of published pages.

Today the backlog of papers has successfully been reduced to an acceptable number, enabling the JBF, more than ever before, to serve as a quality outlet for a large variety of papers in banking and finance. According to Zivney & Reichenstein (1994), JBF is regarded as a particularly appropriate outlet for scholars who are primarily interested in influencing finance scholars.

From 1998 onwards, JBF will strive to publish two special issues per volume thus providing an outlet for `fashionable' issues and serving JBF's large and diverse group of corporate and academic readers. Special Issues can contain either:

1. a collection of invited papers from a guest editor, possibly with the addition of unsolicited manuscripts on the same theme
2. a selection of papers presented at conferences, co-organized by the JBF with a sponsoring institution, or
3. a collection of unsolicited manuscripts `packaged' in the same issue

Ideas for these types of special issues have reached the JBF via associate editors, referees, conference organizers and various other sources and have so far resulted in a wide variety of important special issues (see section 2.3).
 

Since 1994 the JBF has its own WEB site at /locate/econbase encompassing the journal's:

• published and forthcoming contents
• abstracts of all published and forthcoming articles starting with issue 18.1 (1994) onwards
• search facilities on keywords and author names
• listing of special issues
• Associate Editorial Board members
• instructions to authors
• subscription prices
• sample copy request info

JBF's homepage also has a large number of useful links to 34 other economics, econometrics and finance journals. Currently the journal homepage is visited about 1100 times a month, and about 200 abstracts per month are selected and retrieved. Figure 3 represents JBF's homepage usage from distinct hosts, in 1996 and 1997.
 

Fig. 3. ECONbase access 1996/97, Journal of Banking and Finance.

The JBF benefits from a number of author-supporting initiatives that North-Holland, as publisher, has taken in connection with articles published in its journals. In order to serve JBF's authors so as to increase the visibility of their published research, the following initiatives have been introduced:

Finance Alert

A quarterly paper alerting service in which details of articles published in the JBF and 20 other finance related journals are being published. In addition to bibliographical information of each article published in the JBF, Finance Alert prints the abstracts and keywords of each article. Circulation of Finance Alert is gratis and close to 8,500 copies. All of those on the mailing-list are active researchers: authors, subscribers to specialised journals, participants of conferences and members of international societies.

Contents Alert Economics

A free e-mail service started in 1994 covering 35 refereed economics, finance and related journals as published by Elsevier/North-Holland, including the JBF. It provides information on a weekly basis on forthcoming and/or recently published articles in the journals. The service is now subscribed to by over 7,500 scientists, representing 1,600 universities worldwide.

ECONbase

A searchable database, covering articles since 1994 and providing titles, authors & affiliations, keywords, JEL-codes and abstracts of articles published in 35 refereed journals. This database currently contains information on approximately 6,500 published articles covering all branches of economics. ECONbase usage has increased over time; over 140,000 visitors accessed the database in 1996; JBF's site was visited nearly 7,000 times. During the first half of 1997, JBF's site was visited by almost 6,500 visitors and about 1,200 abstracts of published and forthcoming articles were retrieved.
 

In the past 20 years, the banking and finance field has grown and expanded. At the same time the number of journals plus the number of submissions in the field has also grown substantially. During this time span JBF's key success factors have been:

• its wide variety of papers, special issues/studies on ground breaking issues in banking and finance
• its broad and increasing reader base both within academia and the corporate world
• the people who have been associated with the journal in the past 20 years: authors, referees and associate editors.

This retrospective evaluation provides us the opportunity to thank all those people and institutions that contributed their time and talent to the JBF, in particular Professor Florin Aftalion and Professor Bertrand Jacquillat for their dedicated help and assistance during their co-editorship of this journal. We would especially like to express our sincere and profound appreciation to Ms. Emilia Carulli, our highly competent Assisitant Editor. For the past 15 years, she has provided the dedication, continuity and insights that are so important to a professional journal's success.

With all of your continuing interest and co-operation the JBF will be able to maintain its current position as the leading journal within the area of Banking and Finance.

Zivney, L.T., Reichenstein, W., 1994. The pecking order in finance journals. Financial Practice & Education - Fall/Winter 1994, 77 - 87.

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