Research productivity of the finance profession in the Asia-Pacific region

This study ranks the finance research productivity among the Asia-Pacific universities using a set of 17 finance journals during the decade of the 1990s. A total of 97 universities are ranked. The top five universities are Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, City University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of New South Wales, respectively. An interesting finding is that both school history and tradition seem irrelevant to the research productivity. Several prominent universities are not ranked in the top 20. The results suggest that motivations and the degree of research emphasis play an important role in research productivity but not the tradition and the history of a university. Moreover, when compared with other North American universities, the top 20 Asia-Pacific finance programs are comparable with leading state and private universities in the North America. The comparison is even more favorable to the Asia-Pacific universities during the second half of the 1990s. A majority of the top 20 Asia-Pacific universities have significantly improved their research productivity during the time period of 1995–1999.