By Zaher Zantout, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, zzantout@aus.edu | Kimberly Gleason, American University of Sharjah, Unite Arab Emirates, kgleason@aus.edu | Anand Systla, Anderson School of Management, UCLA, USA, asystla92@g.ucla.edu
We examine the relative scientific impact of new research in finance and find it declined steadily during the period 2002 to 2019, more than 60% cumulatively, reaching the lowest level in four decades. We also find declining incidence of “home-run” papers during this period. In contrast, the papers published in the period 1985 to 1999 have strong initial and long-lasting impact collectively. Comparisons to other disciplines, including economics, show that the proliferation of research that advance the finance field only marginally in the past two decades is not typical across research fields. Our findings support the necessity to remove the obstacles hindering innovative research and scientific progress in finance that many prolific researchers and editors of leading journals indicate.