Hanna, S. D. (2001). Citations and scholarly research.
Financial Counseling and Planning, 12(2), iii.
Citations and Scholarly Research
Sherman D. Hanna
1
What distinguishes scholarly
research from the type of research done by authors of articles in the popular
print media and in some practitioner journals? A careful system of citations
of previous research on the topic is certainly one distinguishing feature.
Some of the articles in this issue certainly have very practical applications,
yet they have some type of methodology, and cite previous research. Some
practitioners might be impatient with the speed of the process of putting
together a scholarly journal, but I would assert that some deliberation is
worthwhile. As for researchers, increasingly, publication in a scholarly
journal is the only thing that seems to count for career advancement, which
gives them a powerful incentive to run the gauntlet of getting published
in a scholarly journal.
In Volume 12, 15 regular
articles were published, and there were 78 submissions, a 19% acceptance
rate. This rate reflects major resubmissions, so the chance of a persistent
author eventually obtaining an acceptance is higher. Examine this issue’s
About the Authors feature to get a sense of the ability and accomplishments
of the authors who do get published. For some authors, such as Sharon A. DeVaney,
you would have to review many previous issues to appreciate the number of
awards and other accomplishments.
An excellent example of a useful but scholarly discussion of an important
topic is Caskey’s
Payday Lending. Paying triple digit interest rates to have access to
cash before one receives a paycheck may seem crazy, but as Caskey points
out, it is not clear that simply banning payday lending would solve all of
the problems. Clearly, there is a strong case for education.
Changing Financial Behaviors
Through Home Study by by Crites, Behal, Haldeman and Bennett is an example
of research on methods of delivering education. Evaluation research is challenging,
but this research covers an important topic – reaching children before they
start making financial mistakes.
Barbara O’Neill delivers
more book reviews in this issue, all books intended to help people avoid
financial mistakes and reach their financial goals. After supervising development
of about 500 comprehensive financial plans, I have become convinced that
organization of records, a point mentioned in some of these books, is very
important. Many of my students’ clients cannot find lender, mutual fund,
and benefits statements, so it is difficult to even get started with financial
planning.
Zivney and Hoban’s
In Defense of Investing in Individual Securities is an interesting analysis
with important implications for those with enough funds accumulated to have
choices, especially those in middle and higher tax brackets. For those who
do not want to bother, even if they do not realize potential tax savings,
Martin, Malhotra and McLeod’s A
Comparative Analysis of the Expense Ratios of Domestic and International
Open-End and Closed-End Equity Funds.
Of course, some workers will
not accumulate enough funds in either mutual funds or individual stocks,
and will have to keep working past their desired retirement age, and others
prefer to keep working even they have enough funds.
Determinants of Employment among Older Americans by Bieker, DeVaney and
Chen, explores this issue of increasing importance as we approach 2011.
Of course, risk is an important
aspect of most financial decisions, and Grable and Lytton explore a number
of dimensions of risk tolerance in
Assessing the Concurrent Validity of the SCF Risk Tolerance Question.
Grable and Lytton explore how much financial risk people are willing to tolerate,
while Hanna, Gutter and Fan explore a measure that is related to how much
investment risk they should be willing to tolerate, in
A Measure of Risk Tolerance Based on Economic Theory.
Finally, Gradwell reviews
a web-based program for managing a financial counseling center. This is a
relatively new type of review, but she raises some interesting issues about
the program.
1. Sherman D. Hanna, Professor, Consumer Sciences Department,
The Ohio State University, 1787 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210-1295. Phone:
614-292-4584. Fax: 603-457-6577. E-mail: hanna.1@osu.edu
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