For articles eventually published in the top twenty academic finance journals and top-tier academic business journals, I examine the acceptance time (the time from first-round submission to final-round acceptance) and online/print publication times (the time from first-round submission to online/print publication). I find that the median acceptance times of the top five general-interest finance journals are: Journal of Financial Economics (9.9 months), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (10.6 months), Review of Finance (11.7 months), Review of Financial Studies (15.5 months), and Journal of Finance (19.8 months). The three fastest in finance are Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Review of Asset Pricing Studies, and Financial Management. Journal of Finance is one of the slowest top-tier business journals. Large and significant time differences support the editorial differences hypothesis. Received December 14, 2016; editorial decision December 22, 2016 by Editor Paolo Fulghieri.

This study shows that higher banking organization growth is associated with higher operational losses per dollar of total assets and incidence of tail operational losses. Event studies using merger and acquisition activity and instrumental variable regressions provide consistent evidence. The relationship between banking organization growth and operational risk varies by loss event types and balance sheet categories. Higher growth before the Global Financial Crisis predicts higher operational losses during the crisis. We also find evidence that executive compensation incentives and board monitoring could moderate the relationship between growth and operational losses. These findings have implications for banking organization performance, risk management, and supervision as the banking industry continues to grow and consolidate.

Biomedical innovation suffers from a “funding gap” between the needs of drug development firms and the availability of funds. The requirement of large investments for drug development projects and the high pipeline risk associated with FDA approval causes this funding gap in part. In this paper, we propose a new financial instrument—the “FDA hedge”—that pays off upon FDA approval failure. We develop a theory to show that the FDA hedge can help eliminate the funding gap. Using novel project-level data, we establish empirically that FDA hedge risk is idiosyncratic, and show how better sharing this risk can spur welfare-enhancing R&D.

We investigate how households adjust their shopping behavior in response to financial shocks. Our results show that households visit stores more frequently but buy fewer products and spend less in financial downturns. When money is tight, they switch to cheaper products, use more coupons, and reduce bulk purchases. During financially stressful times, households shrink the set of stores that they visit, mainly by discarding high-end stores, and varying the stores within the same set. Our store-level analysis shows that heightened financial stress in the area is associated with a decline in sales of all products, but much less so for cheaper products. Our results underscore the pivotal role of product markets in facilitating consumption smoothing.