Academic institutions are ranked on a global scale in terms of finance literature productivity. Independent of how research productivity is measured, U.S. institutions are dominant in academic publishing; however, our results show that in recent years European and Asian institutions have improved significantly. Additionally, our study provides an interesting analysis of the relationship between the quality of human capital and the likelihood of an upward career move. Our results show that an individual who is able to relocate to a higher-ranked institution must exhibit a research record that is approximately two times stronger than that of an average faculty member at the destination institution. We further model the probability of an upward move in the academic labor market as a function of human capital using a logistic model. We proxy human capital by several variables including publications in sixteen core finance journals, publications in three top finance journals, the rank of the individual's Ph.D. granting institution, and the number of years of teaching experience. We empirically find that each of the research activity measures enhance the probability of successful moving to a higher ranked institution. On the other hand, we find that the length of an individual's teaching experience does not increase the probability of moving up to a higher ranked institution. Production in the Finance Literature, Institutional Reputation, and Labor Mobility in Academia: a Global Perspective I. Introduction Research productivity has always been a topic of substantial interest to the academic community. These studies can be found in many disciplines. Some examples are Niemi (1987) and Borokhovich et al. (1995) in finance, Brown (1996) in accounting, Conboy et al. (1995), Scott and Mitias (1996), and Collins et al. (2000) in economics. There are several possible reasons for the interest in this topic. First, promotion/tenure, faculty compensations, and resource allocation decisions in academic institutions are often dependent on the productivity of the faculty while the quality and quantity of publications that the faculty produce are factors used to measure this productivity (Gomez-Mejia and Balkin 1992). Second, the ranking of academic institutions draws attention from faculty position applicants, college and graduate school bound students, and potential university donors. Popular publications, such as US News and World Report, offer guidance to these individuals by ranking colleges and universities with academic reputation among the ranking criteria. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (June 1, 2001, p.A8) reports that Ohio State University "taxes" departments in order to distinguish selected departments within their school as "top-notch". "Administrators (at Ohio State) believe the rankings are important because they give graduate students, the public, and state legislators a benchmark. 'They are an indication of what league you're in,' says Randall B. Ripley, Dean of the College of Social and Behavi...