Two Eller Profs Most Cited in Premiere Finance Journal

Alice Bonaime, the Philip Rhoads Fellow in Finance and associate professor of finance, and Mihai Ion, assistant professor of finance, both in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona, topped the list of most cited scholars in the Journal of Financial Economics since 2018. The ranking in JFE reflects the importance and impact of their work, specifically their finding that uncertainty about taxes, government spending, monetary and fiscal policy and regulation stymies M&A activity.

Bonaime and Ion’s paper “Does Policy Uncertainty Affect Mergers and Acquisitions?” (co-authored with Huseyin Gulen of Purdue University) examines the impact of political and regulatory uncertainty on mergers and acquisitions.

“Gridlock and chaos in Washington, D.C.—i.e., policy uncertainty—can curtail merger activity,” says Ion. “This thereby interferes with a key determinant of economic growth—namely the capital reallocation process. Our results imply that policymakers can help businesses by reducing uncertainty as much as possible.” 

The article has been cited more than 100 times in the last two years, earning a CiteScore of 8.7. CiteScores measures the average citations received per peer-reviewed document published by individual journals.

Bonaime joined Eller in 2015 after teaching at the University of Kentucky. She earned her PhD in Finance from the University of Florida in 2008. Her research interests include empirical corporate finance, payout policy, insider trading and mergers and acquisitions. Ion joined Eller in 2014. His research focuses on policy uncertainty, corporate investment, mergers and acquisitions, empirical asset pricing, macro finance, credit cycles, international trade and trade policy. He earned his PhD in Finance from Purdue University in 2013.