Are Academics Passionate About What They're Interested In?

Academics need to publish, especially ones at the beginning of their careers. The challenge is that you are probably going to be making a small contribution on a really popular area. If insaid, you're driven by what you're passionate about, then this might be something which is new and might be quite inpactbl. It took me a long time to get that paper published - it got rejected from two top finance journals.