Third Editor Fired in Elsevier’s Citation Cartel Crackdown

爱思唯尔（Elsevier）打击引用卡特尔：第三位编辑被解雇

Academia: Third Editor Fired in Elsevier’s Citation Cartel Crackdown; Hundreds of Papers At Risk of Retraction. “This is not a series of coincidences; it is a blatant, industrial-scale quid pro quo.” 学术界：爱思唯尔打击引用卡特尔，第三位编辑被解雇；数百篇论文面临撤稿风险。“这绝非一系列巧合，而是赤裸裸的工业级利益交换。”

Two weeks ago, Elsevier announced that they were hiring a new Editor-in-Chief at Research in International Business and Finance (RIBAF). 两周前，爱思唯尔宣布聘请《国际商业与金融研究》（RIBAF）的新任主编。

RIBAF’s previous Editor-in-Chief, John Goodell—a Professor of Finance at the University of Akron—was not due to have his term expire until 2027. So, what happened? I reached out to Goodell and Elsevier for comment, but did not receive a reply. RIBAF的前任主编、阿克伦大学金融学教授约翰·古德尔（John Goodell）的任期本应到2027年才结束。那么，究竟发生了什么？我联系了古德尔和爱思唯尔寻求置评，但未收到回复。

According to my sources, Goodell’s departure is directly due to the citation cartel I exposed 2 months ago that resulted in Elsevier firing of 2 other finance professors, Brian Lucey and Samuel Vigne—both are co-authors of Goodell. 据我的消息来源称，古德尔的离职直接归因于我两个月前曝光的引用卡特尔事件。该事件已导致爱思唯尔解雇了另外两位金融学教授布莱恩·卢西（Brian Lucey）和塞缪尔·维涅（Samuel Vigne），他们两人都是古德尔的合著者。

Goodell has been a professor since 2008. For the first decade, his publication output was steady and within the normal range: 2, 2, 6, 7, 8, 13, 11, 4, 3, 3, 3, 6 papers per year. Then something changed. From 2021 to 2025, his annual output exploded: 16, 34, 53, 58, and 32 papers. How did he accomplish this amazing feat? Simple: he was gifted 100+ papers by the now-fired Brian Lucey and Sam Vigne. 古德尔自2008年起担任教授。在最初的十年里，他的论文发表量保持稳定且处于正常范围：每年分别为2、2、6、7、8、13、11、4、3、3、3、6篇。随后情况发生了变化。从2021年到2025年，他的年度发表量呈爆炸式增长：分别为16、34、53、58和32篇。他是如何完成这一惊人壮举的？很简单：他从现已被解雇的布莱恩·卢西和塞缪尔·维涅那里获赠了100多篇论文。

John Goodell published: 47 papers in International Review of Financial Analysis, 12 papers in International Review of Economics & Finance, 66 papers in Finance Research Letters alone. For a total of 125 papers in their corrupt journals! If each of these 125 papers contains a modest 50 references, this generates roughly 6,250 citations to spread around his cronies. This obviously isn’t legitimate research; it is a citation-farming operation—a practice that has already prompted Elsevier to retract dozens of his cronies’ papers for “citation stacking.” 约翰·古德尔在《国际金融分析评论》发表了47篇论文，在《国际经济与金融评论》发表了12篇，仅在《金融研究快报》就发表了66篇。他在这些腐败期刊上总共发表了125篇论文！如果这125篇论文中每篇包含保守估计50条参考文献，这就产生了大约6,250次引用，用于在他的亲信之间进行分配。这显然不是合法的研究，而是一种“引用耕作”操作——这种做法已经促使爱思唯尔以“引用堆叠”为由撤回了他亲信的数十篇论文。

These hundreds of fraudulent publications have resulted in an explosion of Goodell’s citations, now at 15,663. In 2025 alone, he earned 4,203 citations, resulting in his citation profile exhibiting an exponential “J-curve”, a hallmark of citation rings. According to an analysis published at PubPeer mapping the 500 top Finance Professors in the Elsevier ecosystem, the biggest blue dot in the middle of this graph of influence is John Goodell. Despite working at a terrible school and producing terrible research, through corruption, he has made himself the single most influential researcher at the biggest academic publisher in the world. 这数百篇欺诈性出版物导致古德尔的引用量激增，目前已达到15,663次。仅在2025年，他就获得了4,203次引用，使其引用曲线呈现出指数级的“J型曲线”，这是引用团伙的典型特征。根据PubPeer上发布的一项针对爱思唯尔生态系统中500位顶尖金融学教授的分析，这张影响力图表中间最大的蓝点就是约翰·古德尔。尽管他在一所糟糕的学校工作，产出的也是糟糕的研究，但他通过腐败，使自己成为了全球最大学术出版商中最具影响力的研究者。

According to my sources, Goodell was widely-known to be running a gift-authorship and citation cartel with RIBAF for years in which he makes junior scholars work for him and he adds his name — “you add me on your paper - I get you a few guaranteed RIBAFs” deal, which is a retraction reason at Elsevier. 据我的消息来源称，众所周知，古德尔多年来一直利用RIBAF经营着一个“赠予作者身份”和引用卡特尔，他让初级学者为他工作，然后将自己的名字加上——这种“你在论文上加上我，我保证让你在RIBAF发表几篇”的交易，在爱思唯尔是撤稿的理由。

In an honest world, this journal should be shut down altogether, not reformed. In RIBAF’s case, we are talking about hundreds of compromised papers. By my rough estimate, the number is around 200 retractable papers if you count active co-authors alone, and well above 350 if former collaborators are included. 在一个诚实的世界里，这本期刊应该被彻底关闭，而不是进行改革。就RIBAF而言，我们谈论的是数百篇存在问题的论文。据我粗略估计，如果仅计算活跃的合著者，大约有200篇论文需要撤回；如果包括以前的合作者，这个数字将远超350篇。