The Review of Accounting Studies at Age 25: A Retrospective Using Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The Review of Accounting Studies (RAST) recently completed 25 years of publication. We provide a descriptive analysis of RAST’s characteristics that should interest the stakeholders who have been part of the journal’s evolution. We benchmark RAST’s characteristics against the other top accounting journals: Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, and Contemporary Accounting Research. We provide information on types of research published over time, the journals that cite RAST, and RAST’s most highly cited papers for different periods. Results show that RAST has emerged as a leader among accounting journals despite being the youngest journal among its peer group.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis, Accounting journals, Review of Accounting Studies, Performance analysis, Science mapping, Bibliographic coupling, Citations analysis.

JEL Classification: G0, M4, M41