We certainly recognize the limitations of our analysis. We do not examine citations of or
publication counts in relation to articles published in otherWOS-listed risk and insurance
journals, or any other journals where RMI scholars publish their work. Consequently,
our study should be of greater relevance for RMI faculty who view the JRI as their
primary top quality target journal. We also do not analyze citations to the JRI in non-
WOS journals.5 The author rankings we present are not meant to make any inferences
beyond the scope of our study. For example, some of the most cited papers in RMI
journals were published in economics journals, such as Rothschild and Stiglitz (1970,
1990) and Kimball (1990).6 In addition, some JRI authors may have made significant
contributions to research niches, but because a niche is relatively small, the number of
citations does not reflect the relative contribution to the research niche when all citations
are equally weighted. And, some prominent RMI scholars have published primarily in
other leading RMI journals, such as the Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, or economics
journals rather than the JRI. As with any study, it must be read in light of its limitations
and context.With that in mind, we think some interesting and valuable findings emerge.7
The article is organized as follows. The next section reviews related literature to provide
the context of our study. The “Sample and Data” section describes our sample and data.
be used to make such a decision? Potential non-WOS insurance journals include the Asia-Pacific
Journal of Risk and Insurance, North American Actuarial Journal, Risk Management and Insurance
Review, Journal of Insurance Issues, and Journal of Insurance Regulation. The list of potential non-
WOS finance, economics, and business journals in which citations to JRI articles appear is much
larger, easily in the dozens, if not hundreds.
5 Since 2006, Google Scholar has made it easier to track citations to non-WOS journals and citations
appearing in non-WOS journals, but because it includes working papers and virtually all types
of publications, it presents a “boundary” problem of its own, and one must verify citations
in reference lists to confirm that a publication does in fact cite another work or author. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Scholar. JSTOR a digital library of academic journals
founded in 1995, includes fewer RMI journals than WOS; for example, Insurance Mathematics
and Economics, Astin Bulletin, and Scandinavian Actuarial Journal are in the WOS, but not JSTOR
(see http://about.jstor.org/journals).
6 Chan and Liano (2009) identify the most cited papers appearing in the reference section of
papers published in the Journal of Risk and Insurance (JRI), Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, and
Journal of Insurance Regulation from 2000 to 2004. These authors find that, “in order of impact,
JRI, Econometrica and Journal of Political Economy are considered to be the academic journals that
generate influential works driving risk management and insurance research” (p. 127).
7 Ferguson et al. (2005) use an expert opinion (i.e., survey) approach to identify RMI journal
quality. The authors discuss potential issues related to assessing journal quality and difficulties
using citation counts such as SSCI (see p. 71–72). Among the eight difficulties these authors list
related to using the SSCI for citation counts, our study addresses two (adjustments for articles
published and self-citations) and points out two (equal weighting of citations and low citation
count of important niche research). Four of the eight difficulties these authors list are not related
to a study such as ours because we are not comparing journals; that is, we are not assessing
journal quality. A potential disadvantage of any study that compares citations to specific authors
is that newer academics (i.e., recent PhDs for instance) are likely to have fewer publications in a
lengthy time period such as ours. To some extent, we address this by reporting ranks based on
citations per article and using a period of 4 years beyond the last JRI publication date to count
citations.The “Empirical Findings” section presents our empirical findings. The final section
summarizes and concludes, suggesting potential directions for future research.
PRIOR LITERATURE
We discuss the prior related literature from the oldest to the most recent. Cox Larry and
Gustavson (1990) measure research contribution based on number of pages or number
of articles in 22 sample journals, adjusted for coauthorship in the “strictly proportional”
manner where an author receives credit for an article based on 1/(number of authors).
Their study period was 1976–1986. At the time of their study, the lack of insurance and
actuarial journals in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) citation database was a
problem.
Colquitt (1997) performs a citation analysis of 13 insurance and actuarial journals by
examining the frequency of citations appearing in these 13 journals and 16 finance
journals. The author collects citations appearing in the 29 sample journals between 1991
and 1995. Colquitt (1997) observes that documenting journal quality is important because
assessing journal quality is important for performance review, tenure and promotion
decisions, and due to faculty interest in research outlets. He argues that citation analysis
is a better measure of journal’s contributions than other measures used in prior studies.
The number of insurance and actuarial journals in SSCI has increased from only two,
the JRI and Insurance Mathematics and Economics (IME), in 1990, to four at the time of
his study (the additional two are Geneva Risk and Insurance Review (Geneva Review) and
the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty (JRU)). Colquitt (1997) constructs “insurance impact
factors” defined as citations to a journal’s article published in a certain period divided
by the number of citable articles published during the same period using his 29 sample
journals. He reports the 15 most frequently cited JRI articles cited by sample journals
1991–1995. In addition, he notes that “among the four insurance and actuarial journal
studies, the only consistent finding is that the JRI is the top ranked insurance or actuarial
journal among all the journals evaluated” (p. 519).
Colquitt et al. (1998) present various measures of risk and insurance research productiv-
ity for the period 1986–1997 using the “insurance impact factors” from Colquitt (1997)
discussed earlier. These authors rank the top 25 authors by number of article pages and
number of articles, adjusted and unadjusted for coauthorship. The number of insurance
journals authors publish in is reported and almost 95 percent publish in two or fewer
insurance journals. JRI authors have the highest degree of overlap with the Journal of
Insurance Issues (JII) and Journal of Insurance Regulation (JIR).
Colquitt (2003) extends Colquitt (1997) to evaluate citations appearing in the sample
journals between 1996 and 2000. He also adds three risk journals to the Colquitt (1997)
study to bring the total sample journals to 32.
Browne (2003) examines citations appearing in the JRI from 1980 to 2002. A major
difference between our study and Browne (2003) is that we examine citations to JRI
articles that appear in journals indexed by WOS. Browne reports that the top three
journals cited in JRI articles from 1980 to 2002 are: the JRI, Journal of Finance and Journal
of Financial Economics; no other RMI journal is among the top 10. In contrast to Browne
who examines citations appearing in the JRI, we look at the influence of JRI authors and
articles upon a broad set of scholarly journals.