Journal of Banking and Finance (journal-of-banking-and-finance)

Journal positioning

The Journal of Banking and Finance is an Elsevier journal and a broad, large-volume outlet for applied empirical work across banking and finance: bank risk and regulation, credit, markets, asset pricing, corporate finance, and international finance. It is a solid field journal rather than an elite-tier or top-3 venue, valued for breadth and a steady throughput of well-executed applied work. The readership is the wide applied finance community, including practitioners and policy-adjacent researchers.

This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the Elsevier / JBF site and the editorial submission system.

When to trigger

• The author names JBF (or a broad applied finance outlet) as the target venue.
• A solid applied empirical finance paper does not clear the elite-field bar but is well-executed and clearly scoped.
• A banking/risk/regulation paper needs a broad, credible home with reasonable review odds.
• The author needs JBF's desk-reject risks and a credible field / elite-field alternative list.

Scope & topic fit

• Banking: bank risk, performance, capital, regulation, supervision, lending, and credit risk.
• Markets and asset pricing: applied return and risk studies, portfolio and risk-management questions.
• Corporate finance, governance, and international finance with applied empirical designs.
• Broad applied finance across asset classes, institutions, and jurisdictions.

Method & evidence bar

• Competent, transparent empirics: appropriate samples, correct standard errors, and sensible robustness.
• Identification matters where causal claims are made; observed associations should be framed honestly rather than over-claimed.
• Asset-pricing and predictability work should respect current concerns (multiple testing, out-of-sample) at a level appropriate to a broad field journal.
• A clear, well-motivated question and a credible answer outweigh methodological novelty here.

Structure & house style

• The introduction states the question, the data, the design, and the headline result early, and explains the applied or policy relevance.
• Position the contribution against recent JBF and field work; avoid over-claiming relative to top-3 papers.
• JBF uses an unstructured abstract and JEL codes; an online appendix carries supplementary results.
• Exhibits report economic magnitudes (not only t-stats); the central result should be readable from one table.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Journal of Banking and Finance guide for authors" and follow the current Elsevier version.
• Re-check the submission fee, formatting, abstract/JEL, anonymization, and the disclosure policy (data sources, conflicts, prior circulation).
• Re-check the current data/code and online-appendix requirements.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence stating why this result matters to applied banking/finance readers.
• The contribution is stated as a clear empirical finding with honest framing, not as a significant coefficient over-sold as causal.
• The introduction positions the paper against recent JBF and field work.
• Samples, standard errors, and robustness are sound for a broad field journal.
• Disclosure, data sources, and the online appendix are ready.

Common desk-reject triggers

• An incremental "first to study X in jurisdiction Y" paper with no clear contribution beyond novelty of setting.
• Causal language attached to a plainly endogenous association.
• Weak data, mishandled inference, or unaddressed obvious confounders.
• A paper aimed above its weight (an elite-tier or top-3 contribution that should be submitted there instead, or a thin paper with nothing to say).

Re-routing decision

• Genuinely elite contribution → journal-of-finance, journal-of-financial-economics, review-of-financial-studies, review-of-finance, journal-of-financial-and-quantitative-analysis.
• Specialist banking/intermediation mechanism → journal-of-financial-intermediation; corporate-finance core → journal-of-corporate-finance; microstructure → journal-of-financial-markets.
• International finance → journal-of-international-money-and-finance; empirical-methods focus → journal-of-empirical-finance; practitioner-relevant corporate finance → financial-management.
• Macro/monetary → journal-of-money-credit-and-banking, journal-of-monetary-economics.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Journal of Banking and Finance
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <is the applied design sound and honestly framed for a broad field journal?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <submission system / fee / disclosure / online appendix / data>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>