Moderators and mediators everywhere
"Moderating effect" and "mediating effect" are among the most frequent keywords in finance and management papers, and mediation models rank high on the equation ranking. How robust are these interaction and mediation results, and what would good practice look like?
What prompted this
Since October 2025, "moderating effect" appears on 430 papers (219 in finance journals, 146 in management) and "mediating effect" on 267 (171 in finance); 29 carry both. "Moderating effect" is the 36th most frequent keyword of the last 30 days, and it is growing in the accounting journals (8 papers in July–September 2026 against about 4 expected). On the equation ranking, the mediation model is mentioned by 62 papers in 30 days, 29 of them in finance.
Questions
- How many moderators does a typical paper test, and does it correct for testing many?
- How many mediation claims rest on the three-step regressions of Baron and Kenny, which causal mediation analysis has questioned, and how many would survive its assumptions?
- Are interactions reported with marginal effects and enough statistical power?
Possible approach
Code a sample of recent papers for the number of moderators and mediators tested, the inference method, corrections for multiple testing and the availability of replication data.
Next step
Draw the finance papers with a "moderating effect" keyword from papers.json and record how many moderators each one tests.