CAFR 1999-2019, Past Two Decades and Looking Ahead

Abstract

China Accounting and Finance Review (CAFR) was co-established by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Tsinghua University in 1999. During the past 20 years, CAFR has been publishing original papers in accounting and finance with a focus on China-related studies. In this article, we review publishing patterns and impactful articles published in CAFR for the past 20 years with the purpose of gaining knowledge of recent publication patterns and trends as well as inspiring new insights for future publications. We classify CAFR articles into six groups: (i) information disclosure; (ii) auditing and taxation; (iii) corporate governance; (iv) market efficiency; (v) corporate finance; and (vi) miscellaneous topics, and broadly review the past publications by the classification. We also summarize publications by their regions of study, research methodologies and author affiliations. Then we choose several impactful CAFR articles that have been actively cited in Chinese and English literature and highlight their contributions. Furthermore, we find that four out of five China studies published in JFS exclusively focus on China’s banking industry, while none of the past CAFR publications have studied this topic. We therefore call for more studies on China’s financial stability and banking system. Finally, we call for more high-quality papers in accounting and finance studies for all countries or regions outside of China.