Patterns of Research Output in the Accounting Literature: A Study of the Bibliometric Distributions

This study examines whether any regularity exists in the publication pattern among accounting researchers. The empirical results reveal that a strong bibliometric regularity exists in the accounting literature: the number of authors publishing in papers is approximately 1/n^c of those publishing one paper. It is shown that the accounting literature conforms very well to the model with c=1.872 if data are taken from a large collection of journals. When applied to individual journals, the result shows that values of c range from 2.220 to 4.368. The graduates of seven graduate programs are found to account for more than one‐third of the most prolific authors, indicating strong institutional dominance in the production of accounting literature.