History

The Review of Financial Studies (RFS) was established following discussions at the 1986 WFA meetings between Michael Brennan, George Constantinides, Jon Ingersoll, Chester Spatt, and Joseph Williams. These individuals recognized that the finance profession would benefit from the establishment of a journal that would publish relevant new research without regard to level of technical difficulty; that would be especially sensitive to the needs and interests of the younger members of the profession; that would limit the tenure of the editorial board in order to ensure sensitivity to new ideas; that would not be tied to any one university; and that would be owned by the profession rather than by commercial interests.

Michael Brennan, who had already served as the editor of the Journal of Finance, agreed to be the first editor of the new journal. Mark Weinstein was recruited to help organize the nonprofit organization that would own the journal, and the Society for Financial Studies (SFS) was incorporated in California in 1987. The founding officers of the SFS were Joseph Williams (President), George Constantinides (Vice President), Mark Weinstein (Secretary/Treasurer), and Michael Brennan (Editor of the RFS). With financial backing provided by a committee of Founders (Michael Brennan, George Constantinedes, Nils Hakansson, Jon Ingersoll, Robert Litzenberger, Robert Merton, Merton Miller, Richard Roll, Steven Ross, Myron Scholes, Chester Spatt, and Joseph Williams), the SFS was able to negotiate a favorable publishing contract with Oxford University Press in 1987. A call for papers was made and the first issue was published in 1988. Such was the success of the journal that by 1990 the Society was able to repay all of the funds provided by the Founders.

In keeping with the principles on which the journal was founded, a majority of the Associate Editors of the RFS is elected by the current Board of Editors, and the Editor and Associate Editors serve for relatively short terms. For example, the Executive Editor’s term is limited to no more than six years, and thus far the executive editors (Michael Brennan, Chester Spatt, Franklin Allen, Ravi Jagannathan, Maureen O’Hara, Matthew Spiegel, David Hirshleifer, Andrew Karolyi, Itay Goldstein, and Tarun Ramadorai) have nearly always been affiliated with a different university.

The SFS umbrella of journals expanded with the publication of the Review of Asset Pricing Studies (RAPS) in 2011 and the Review of Corporate Finance Studies (RCFS) in 2012. The RAPS Executive Editors have been Wayne Ferson, Jeffrey Pontiff, and Zhiguo He. The RCFS Executive Editors have been Paolo Fulghieri, Andrew Ellul, and Isil Erel.

A brief history about the founding of the Review of Asset Pricing Studies and the Review of Corporate Finance Studies
[Written by Professor Matthew Spiegel, Yale School of Management, September 2026]

The Society for Financial Studies was founded as a means to launch the Review of Financial Studies (RFS). That proved to be incredibly successful. By the mid-2000s, the volume and quality of finance research had grown dramatically. Leading journals like the RFS were receiving more strong submissions than they could publish. At the same time, the Journal of Business closed down, thereby reducing the number of prominent general-interest outlets. These developments led the SFS to consider how it could better serve the academic finance commnuity.

In February 2006, Matthew Spiegel, then executive editor of the Review of Financial Studies, recommended that the SFS establish a series of area journals, including a possible Review of Corporate Finance. In June he linked that idea to smaller conferences organized by field, whose programs and participating editors could raise the visibility of the new journals. A July 2006 follow-up from Oxford University Press recorded that new journals had also been discussed at the SFS annual meeting and expressed Oxford’s interest in pursuing launch ideas with the Society.

In 2007 the SFS continued to work on when and how to launch any new journals. Oxford proposed discussing a specialist sister journal to the Review of Financial Studies, while Spiegel’s implementation work and an RFS forum proposal envisioned field-specific journals, transfers of editorial work and referee reports, and a conference circuit that could help the journals earn professional recognition. (The forum has since ceased operation.) These ideas were discussed at the June SFS meetings. On August 16, SFS President Wayne Ferson formalized the next stage by appointing Michael Fishman, Maureen O’Hara, and Spiegel to a Committee on New Journal Initiatives. The committee was charged with evaluating possible SFS responses to the profession’s growth and reporting to the Executive Committee before the 2008 annual meeting.

The committee sought views through the RFS forum, correspondence with associate editors, conversations across the profession, and a short survey at the 2008 Utah Winter Finance Conference. Forty-nine completed surveys revealed both demand and uncertainty: the most popular response favored another general-interest journal, some respondents preferred simply expanding the Review of Financial Studies, and others worried that a tiered transfer system could weaken the RFS. The feedback sharpened the central challenge for the field-journal strategy: the new outlets would need sufficient editorial stature, visibility, and influence to count in promotion and tenure decisions.

From proposal to implementation

During 2008, Maureen O’Hara, Kenneth Singleton, and Matthew Spiegel developed the plan that became the proposal for two additional SFS journals: the Review of Asset Pricing Studies (RAPS) and the Review of Corporate Finance Studies (RCFS). Rather than establish another pair of broad finance journals, the proposal envisioned distinctive outlets organized around major areas of the field. Each would seek work of the rigor and importance expected of the Review of Financial Studies while developing its own editorial identity and intellectual community.

The journals were intended to publish work whose influence would be recognized in tenure decisions, and their associated conferences were expected to help bring forthcoming articles to the profession’s attention. This objective shaped the emphasis on editorial independence, high standards, respected founding editorial teams, and carefully designed relationships among the SFS journals.

The SFS approved the new journals in early 2009. On March 5, Maureen O’Hara, then SFS president, told Oxford University Press that the proposal was ready to move from planning to implementation and asked Oxford to develop the publishing arrangements. After its review process, OUP approved the launches in September 2009. The remaining work included selecting executive editors, establishing editorial boards and submission systems, developing budgets, and creating policies that would give the journals genuine editorial independence, while keeping them within the SFS.

The Review of Asset Pricing Studies

Wayne Ferson became the founding executive editor of RAPS. Its initial editorial board included Maureen O’Hara, Jeffrey Pontiff, and Amir Yaron, supported by associate editors drawn from across asset pricing and investments. Together they established the journal’s scope, standards, and review procedures. RAPS published its first issue in December 2011.

The Review of Corporate Finance Studies

Paolo Fulghieri became the founding executive editor of RCFS. He was joined by Michael Roberts, Joshua Rauh, Christopher Hennessy, and Efraim Benmelech. RCFS began accepting manuscripts in September 2010 and published its first issue in September 2012.

An expanded scholarly institution

The establishment of RAPS and RCFS marked an important milestone in the SFS as an organization. What had primarily been a society devoted to the publication of one leading journal became a broader scholarly institution supporting several publications and intellectual communities. The two journals have since developed their own identities and traditions, but their common origin lies in a collective SFS effort to create additional first-rate outlets for finance research.

A brief history about the founding of the North American and Asia-Pacific Cavalcade conferences
[Written by Professor Matthew Spiegel, Yale School of Management, September 2026]

The conceptual origins of the SFS Finance Cavalcade are tied to the Society’s early planning for additional journals. In June 2006, Matthew Spiegel proposed a series of smaller conferences organized by field at universities around the country, with editors of the relevant journals participating to increase the visibility of the work presented and published. By October 2007, RFS associate editors were being asked to comment on a public New Journal and Conference Circuit Proposal. A 2008 journal proposal then gave the conference idea a more specific form: SFS-supported summer meetings, universities invited to bid as hosts, and back-to-back sessions that would bring together researchers from different fields while featuring both working papers and forthcoming journal articles.

In 2010, these earlier ideas were converted into an operational annual conference. The objective was to create a meeting broad enough to represent the range of modern financial research, but sufficiently selective and focused to encourage sustained discussion among authors, discussants, editors, and other participants.

On July 30, 2010, Spiegel circulated a draft announcement for what he called the SFS’s first week-long Finance Cavalcade. The name conveyed a procession of new research spanning the major areas of finance. The conference was designed as a joint undertaking of the Review of Financial Studies, the Review of Asset Pricing Studies, and the Review of Corporate Finance Studies, bringing together the communities associated with all three SFS journals.

The first Finance Cavalcade

A final proposal was developed by Paolo Fulghieri and Wayne Ferson, the founding executive editors of RCFS and RAPS, and Matthew Spiegel. The three worked on the conference format, submission and review procedures, dual-submission relationships with the SFS journals, and the selection of host institutions. Advice from other members of the finance community, including Marc Lipson, who later helped organize the second Cavalcade, also influenced the emerging design.

During the summer of 2010, the SFS solicited proposals from universities interested in hosting the first conferences. After considering bids and possible bids from several institutions, the organizers selected the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business for 2011 and the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business for 2012. The choices were settled in September, after which the organizers built the submission system, recruited the program committee, and opened submissions in December.

The first SFS Finance Cavalcade was held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on May 23-27, 2011. Spiegel, Fulghieri, and Ferson served as conference chairs. The local organizing group included Sugato Bhattacharyya, E. Han Kim, Paolo Pasquariello, and Tyler Shumway. Jaclyn Einstein, Erin Schwartz, Joyce Buchanan, and others provided the extensive administrative and logistical work required to establish a new conference. The Mitsui Life Financial Research Center supplied important support for the inaugural event.

The Cavalcade subsequently became a recurring SFS conference, with universities competing to host it and a succession of scholars serving as program chairs, committee members, discussants, and local organizers. Although its format evolved, the conference retained its founding purpose: to provide a venue for high-quality research across finance and to foster interaction among researchers associated with the SFS and its journals.

The Launch of the Asia-Pacific Conference

After the North American Cavalcade proved successful over several years, the Society considered extending the model to the rapidly growing finance community in the Asia-Pacific region. In May 2016, the SFS voted to establish an Asia-Pacific Cavalcade, with the first meeting planned for December 2017. Spiegel, then president of the SFS, organized the initial implementation with Laura Starks and Craig Holden, who joined him on the committee responsible for soliciting and evaluating hosting proposals. Jaclyn Einstein and Leigh Ann Clark adapted the North American bidding and administrative structure for the new conference.

The North American conference’s demonstrated scale and success provided an additional foundation for the expansion: the 2016 Cavalcade received 977 submissions and drew more than 400 attendees.

In December 2016, the committee selected the PBC School of Finance at Tsinghua University in Beijing to host the inaugural meeting. The first SFS Cavalcade Asia-Pacific was held on December 13-15, 2017. Bernard Yeung served as conference chair, Ron Masulis as vice chair, Kalok Chan as associate chair, and Hong Zhang as the host faculty sponsor.

SFS 35th Anniversary Video
[Created 2022]

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the SFS, we created a video message featuring our founders and some of our past Presidents. This video, which played at lunch at the SFS Cavalcade conference, answers the question: Why is it called the Cavalcade? Featuring:

George Constantinides, Founding Member & President 1991-1994
Chester Spatt, Founding Member & President 1994-1997
Michael Brennan, Founding Member & President 1997-1999
Milton Harris, President 1999-2002
Ravi Jagannathan, President 2002-2005
Matthew Spiegel, President 2014-2017, Founder of the SFS Cavalcade
Mark Weinstein, SFS Secretary/Treasurer from 1987-2012