Professor Zhang Xiaoyan's paper ranks third in terms of citation count among the papers published in the Journal of Finance over the past five years-PBCSF Tsinghua University

Recently, the paper "Tracking Retail Investor Activity" co-authored by Zhang Xiaoyan, Associate Dean and Chair Professor of Finance at Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance, Ekkehart Boehmer from Singapore Management University, Charles M. Jones from Columbia University, and Zhang Xinran from Central University of Finance and Economics, has been included in the ranking list of citation count for papers published in the Journal of Finance over the past five years. With a citation count of 330 times, it ranks third among more than 350 papers published from 2019 to 2023. This paper was published in the Journal of Finance in 2021.

The paper "Tracking Retail Investor Activity" innovatively provides a simple algorithm for identifying retail investors from public trading data. In recent years, the rise of zero-commission trading platforms (such as Robinhood), the surge in retail trading volume due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and events like the GameStop (GME) retail investor standoff with Wall Street have made researchers increasingly aware of the importance of retail investors in the financial market. The publication of this paper has provided a solid data foundation for both academia and industry to study the trading behavior of retail investors. By using the algorithm identified in this paper to recognize retail investors, subsequent papers have conducted in-depth research in various fields such as the relationship between retail investors and information efficiency, social media, ESG, financial technology, micro market structure, and behavioral finance, generating a broad impact.

The Journal of Finance (JF) is a top-tier international finance journal, ranking first among the three major finance journals (JF, JFE, RFS) and enjoying an extremely high academic reputation. According to the 2023 "Journal Impact Factor" report, the journal has an impact factor of 7.6, making it a recognized top business and finance journal in the international academic community and also the most influential academic publication in the field of finance.