Elsevier has fired John Goodell, the third editor caught up in a citation cartel scandal rocking their finance journals. Goodell served as Editor-in-Chief at Research in International Business and Finance (RIBAF), a position he held until recently despite his term not expiring until 2027. His dismissal follows the earlier firings of Brian Lucey and Samuel Vigne, with whom Goodell co-authored numerous papers.

Goodell's publication record reveals the scale of the operation. From 2008-2020, he maintained a steady output of 2-13 papers annually. Then his numbers exploded: 16 papers in 2021, 34 in 2022, 53 in 2023, 58 in 2024, and 32 in 2025. He published 125 papers in journals controlled by his now-fired co-authors—47 in International Review of Financial Analysis, 12 in International Review of Economics & Finance, and 66 in Finance Research Letters.

The fallout extends far beyond three editors. Goodell's citation count now stands at 15,663, with 4,203 coming in 2025 alone—an exponential "J-curve" pattern characteristic of citation rings. Elsevier's guidelines explicitly prohibit the practice that fueled this scheme: editors handling manuscripts from co-authors should transfer papers to another journal. Because Goodell processed hundreds of such papers, a full investigation would likely require retracting hundreds of articles, turning this into a major embarrassment for the publisher.

The cartel operated through gift-authorship deals. Junior scholars added Goodell as a co-author to papers at different journals in exchange for guaranteed publication at RIBAF. One prolific example: Dr. Anna Min Du published at least 22 papers in RIBAF during 2024-2025 while serving as an editor at six other Elsevier journals. Elsevier seems more focused on containing the scandal than confronting it directly.