This study ranks 15 leading finance journals by the average number of Social Sciences Citation Index cites per articles for articles published in 1996. It also defines a “top article,” compared to an “article in a top journal.” Using different criteria for top articles, I examine the Type I error (a “top” article is rejected by a particular decision rule, e.g., in top three journals) and the Type II error (a “non-top” article is accepted as a top article) for each journal and combinations of the journals. Due to the high error rates, the results suggest that identifying top articles requires looking beyond the Top 3 journals, as well as examining each article more carefully for its intrinsic quality.
