Daily Archives: November 30, 2009

In its mission statement, the Zicklin School of Business is explicit about its commitment to scholarly research and knowledge creation.  Zicklin’s distinguished faculty are well noted for their contributions to the ever evolving global business environment.  One measurement of the Zicklin faculty’s success in this regard is the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) ranking of Top US Business Schools.   

The SSRN is a collection of scholarly work in each of the social sciences.  The SSRN eLibrary consists of hundreds of thousands of full-text documents submitted by the world’s leading journals and researchers.  These documents are accessible by academics, students, and practitioners from around the world. 

The SSRN tracks how many times each document is downloaded and associates that download with the document’s author(s) as well as the institution with which the author is associated.  This tracking process creates a measurement of importance for each document and ranks researchers and institutions in accordance to their level of scholarly importance. 

Baruch Zicklin ranks in SSRN's Top 25

Baruch Zicklin amongst the best in NYC

Each month, the SSRN publishes updated rankings of business schools and other social science institutions.  For business schools, the rankings are broken down by U.S.-based and international.  In total, 482 U.S.-based business schools are considered for the ranking each month.  For the third straight month, Baruch College Zicklin School of Business is ranked in the Top 25, placing it in the company of the world’s top research institutions.

In addition to institutional rankings, the SSRN ranks individual scholars.  10,000 authors, spanning business, economics, and law,  are included in this survey.  Two faculty members from Baruch College Zicklin School of Business are ranked amongst the top 200 authors, placing them in the top 2% in the world. 

Liuren Wu is a Professor of Economics and Finance.  His papers have been downloaded 5,359 times in the 12 months dating to November 2009.  This places him 123rd in the world.  In total, Professor Wu has 54 papers in SSRN’s eLibrary.  They have been downloaded a total of 28,590 times.  His most popular paper, Variance Risk Premia, which was co-authored by Peter Carr of NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, has been downloaded 1,924 times and recieved 53 citations, according to SSRN.

Turan Bali, also of Zicklin’s Finance and Economics faculty, placed 182nd in terms of the number of downloads over the last 12 months.  His 48 papers were downloaded 4,537 times this past year and 13,176 over their lifetime.  Professor Bali’s most popular paper Idiosyncratic Volatility and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns, co-authored by Fordham University’s Nusret Cakici, has been downloaded 1,476 times and cited 29 times.

Like other top-notch research institutions, Zicklin aggressively pursues knowledge creation and embraces its responsibility in preparing its community for success in the global economy.  As indicated by the SSRN ranking, the Zicklin faculty are recognized as leaders in business research.  Their work matters.  After all, the research being conducted by the Zicklin faculty not only affects scholarship, but resonates from Lexington Avenue, down Madison Avenue, and through Wall Street and beyond. 

Important Links:

Social Science Research Network:  http://www.ssrn.com
Professor Liuren Wu: http://faculty.baruch.cuny.edu/lwu/
Professor Turan Bali: http://faculty.baruch.cuny.edu/tbali/