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Volume 32 Issue 1 From the Editor 

Welcome to the latest issue of Financial Services Review (FSR). This issue includes four 

fascinating and thought provoking papers. The papers comprising this issue provide an insight into 

the varied and multidisciplinary approaches currently being utilized by researchers in the field. 

The first paper was written by Drs. Ning Wang, Yiling Deng, and Ruohan Wu. Their paper looks 

at the way household financial decision-makers make portfolio allocation decisions in the context 

of the demand for life insurance. What they found is quite interesting; namely, life insurance 

ownership is affected by a household’s decisions to invest in cash and cash equivalents, bonds, and 

retirement assets. They also observed a relationship between debt repayment strategies and life 

insurance ownership. As noted by one of the Journal’s Associate Editors, this study is significant 

in adding to the financial planning literature while at the same time contributing to the way 

financial service professionals provide advice. 

The second paper was written by Drs. Jason Anderson, Jeffrey Furlong, and Stuart Heckman. Their 

paper deals with a relatively under-researched topic—altruistic bequests. What makes their 

research so impactful is that they view bequests from a motivational and receipt perspective. They 

found that a variety of economic and attitudinal variables help to describe the giving and receiving 

of bequests. My expectation is that their work will spur on more estate planning research. 

The third paper, written by Drs. Danah Jeong, Benjamin Hampton, and Kristy Archuleta, explores 

factors related to financial well-being. Using a framework conceptualized by Dr. So-hyun Joo at 

Ewha Womans University, these authors found that a financial decision-maker’s demographic 

profile, financial status, financial behavior, and financial satisfaction were associated with reports 

of financial well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, they noted that financial 

satisfaction mediates the relationship between subjective financial knowledge and financial well-

being.  

The last paper in this issue was written by Drs. Stéphane Chrétien and Manel Kammoun. This 

captivating paper describes a study that was designed to provide insight into investor disagreement 

in the performance evaluation of equity mutual funds in describing fund characteristics, the degree 

of active fund management, and fund flows. Their work not only advances the investment and fund 

management literature, their study provides unique insights into the way fund investment style and 

net fund flows can be used to explain investor disagreements.  

I am going to end this editorial with some housekeeping news. Since moving to the Journal’s new 

management system, the number of submitted papers has increased. We have also noticed that the 

quality of submissions continues to improve. These are trends we hope to see continue into the 

future. My promise back to everyone who has or is considering submitting a paper to Financial 

Services Review is that the Associate Editors and I will continue to work diligently to return 

decisions back to authors in a timely manner. Working together, we can ensure that the Journal is 

published on time, which is one way to improve the Journal’s impact. 

 Given where the Journal is at this point in time, I do want to remind those who are considering 

submitting a paper to carefully review the Journal’s submission guidelines. The day when someone 

could write a paper without paying close attention to their paper’s style, formatting, editing, 

references, and reference list, then submitting that paper without fear of a desk rejection or a quick 



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unreviewed return, is quicky coming to an end. As the number and quality of submissions 

continues to increase, competition for the few publication slots in the Journal are quickly being 

filled. The best way to ensure that your submission gets through the review process seamlessly is 

to take the time to format the submission process appropriately. With this in mind, let’s go over the 

number one problem we continue to see with submissions. 

Financial Services Review generally follows the APA manual. Let’s say you typically write papers 

using MLA or Harvard or some other specialized system, but now you are wanting to submit to 

Financial Services Review. One option is just to submit and see what happens. A better alternative 

is to go through the reference list and change the references so they follow APA. Here is a quick 

and easy way to do just this.  

• Go to google scholar. 

• Copy your current reference into the search bar; here is what a reference would look like 

in MLA: 

Grable, John, and Ruth H. Lytton. "Financial risk tolerance revisited: the 

development of a risk assessment instrument☆." Financial services review 8.3 

(1999): 163-181. 

• Rather than reformat, find the links underneath the paper; these will look like this: 

 
• Now, click on the icon; this is what you’ll see: 

• Click on the APA reference, copy it, and paste it into your paper.  

This will work 90% of the time. When it 

comes to in-text references, visit the 

Purdue University library site using APA 

formatting as a google search term or 

look at the Journal’s style examples. 

If you do these simple things, your chances of 

having your paper move through the review 

process smoothly will be greatly improved.  

Finally, one correction to an editorial from 2023. 

The letter from the editor for Volume 31, Issue 

2/3 inadvertently omitted Dr. Sharon DeVaney 

as a coauthor of the Best Paper Award for “Fear 

and Trust in Financial Institutions” that was 

written with Drs. Isha Chawla, Mia Russell, and 

Kenneth White. The editorial staff wishes to 

express our sincere apology for this omission.  

 

All the best, 

John E. Grable, Ph.D., CFP®