Ranking of Tax Journals: Results from a Perception Study

The Australian Federal Government launched its Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative in February 2008.  As part of the ERA exercise, the Australian Research Council (ARC), the peak research body in Australia, uses the ranking of journals as a main indicator to assess research quality.  In February 2010, the ARC released its ERA list in which academic journals of all disciplines are ranked into four tiers (A*, A, B and C).  The present paper intends to serve a two-fold purpose.  First, it critically reviews the ARC’s ranking process in terms of methodology, outcomes and impact.  Second, it reports on findings obtained from a study of Australasian tax academics’ perception of tax journal ranking in general and the ARC’s tax journal ranking in particular.  The data of this study are obtained from published sources and an electronic survey of Australasian tax academics.  The methods of analysis include both archival and statistical analyses.  Two findings emerge from the paper.  First, the ARC’s current ranking of tax journals is still regarded as flawed and thus does not receive widespread support from tax academics in Australia and New Zealand.  Second, the ARC’s ranking will have far reaching influences on tax academics’ research directions and long-term viability of tax journals, especially those published in Australia and New Zealand.