What Determines Time Spent in Peer Reviews? – Evidence from The Accounting Review

Abstract

The existing empirical literature on the peer review process in general and in accounting in particular has primarily focused on the fairness of the process and reasons for rejections of submitted papers. There is little evidence on the factors which might influence the overall timeliness of peer review. Based on a sample of hand-collected data from 477 articles published in The Accounting Review (TAR) between 1997 and 2009 I investigate the effect of informal feedback, article- and author-specific factors as well as fairness indicators on the duration of the peer review process. The results of my base model suggest that peer review in TAR is not object to external influence. Noticeably, articles which get highly cited after publication, pass the process significantly faster, indicating a certain effectiveness of the process. Collaboration between authors is a more important factor than informal feedback from colleagues, seminars, conferences, etc. In a second analysis I additionally investigate the effect of fairness indicators based on a subsample of articles for which the (accepting) editor is known. If institutional bonds between editor and author(s) exist, the time spent in peer review apparently decreases. This result should be interpreted with caution, as it could simply reflect a self-selection of high quality faculty. The results are robust to different definitions of author-specific attributes and the inclusion of submission year-, method- and topic-fixed effects.

Keywords: peer review duration, acceptance-submission lag, academic journals, acknowledgements, informal feedback, fairness

JEL Classification: M41, N01