The Most Prolific Authors in Financial Planning Literature

ReseaRch is a key component of an academic discipline. Publishing research in peer-reviewed journals continues to be a common requirement for academics pursuing tenure and promotion. Occasionally, researchers have endeavored to analyze the landscape of published research within a particular discipline or sub-discipline. This type of analysis can be useful in identifying top educational programs and prolific researchers (see Baltagi 2007; Danielson and Heck 2014; Geistfeld and Key 1986; Neary, Mirrlees, and Tirole 2003; Phillips, Choi, and Schochet 1988; Scott and Mitias 1996). As a relatively new profession, and an even younger academic discipline, little is known about the comprehensive landscape of financial planning research and its key players. This paper seeks to provide such insight, particularly regarding the most prolific authors in financial planning over the last three decades. Grable (2006) provided a thorough review of publication rankings commonly used in academic financial planning programs. Of these rankings, Grable noted: “While other publications certainly publish papers that cover these topic areas, only Financial Counseling and Planning (now known as the Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning), Financial Services Review, Journal of Personal Finance, Journal of Financial Planning, and Journal of Financial Service Professionals publish papers that have a predominant relevance to the financial planning and counseling community” (p. 75). Beach and Kaushik (2012) also identified these five journals as “a platform to researchers for their research in financial planning” (p. 324). Grable and Archuleta (2009) reiterated the value of these five journals in evaluating financial planning faculty for tenure and promotion decisions. As such, this analysis focused on authorship of the articles that have been published in these five financial planning-focused journals.