---
title: "Chinese cities research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Chinese cities” appeared in 689 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (414), finance (137) and operations research (60)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-cities
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-cities.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Chinese cities” appeared in 689 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (414), finance (137) and operations research (60). (as of 2026-11-04)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-04T00:03:46+09:00
window: 2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “Chinese cities”

Research on “Chinese cities” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Chinese cities” appeared in 689 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (414), finance (137) and operations research (60).
- 154 of them were published in 2025, against 17 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Peking University (20), Xi'an Jiaotong University (17) and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (17).
- The journals publishing most of them were Economic Analysis and Policy (60), Finance research letters (44) and Energy Economics (40).
- The most-cited of them is “Environmental regulation, green technology innovation, and industrial structure upgrading: The road to the green transformation of Chinese cities” (Energy Economics, 2021), with 1,192 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 14 | 17 | 16 | 27 | 28 | 36 | 52 | 77 | 82 | 65 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 14 | 29 | 46 | 37 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 15 | 10 | 10 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 12 | 7 | 8 | 12 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 17 | 23 | 23 | 31 | 37 | 50 | 91 | 133 | 154 | 130 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 60 |
| 2 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 44 |
| 3 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 40 |
| 4 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 40 |
| 5 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 21 |
| 6 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 18 |
| 7 | [Economic Change and Restructuring](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-change-and-restructuring.md) | 17 |
| 8 | [Land Use Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/land-use-policy.md) | 16 |
| 9 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 15 |
| 10 | [Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-a-policy-and-practice.md) | 13 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 20 |
| 2 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 17 |
| 3 | [Zhongnan University of Economics and Law](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhongnan-university-of-economics-and-law.md) | 17 |
| 4 | [Chongqing University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university.md) | 15 |
| 5 | [Nanjing University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanjing-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 15 |
| 6 | [Sun Yat-sen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sun-yat-sen-university.md) | 15 |
| 7 | [Tsinghua University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tsinghua-university.md) | 15 |
| 8 | [Wuhan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/wuhan-university.md) | 15 |
| 9 | [Beijing Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-institute-of-technology.md) | 14 |
| 10 | [Nanchang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanchang-university.md) | 14 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 483 |
| 2 | United States | 47 |
| 3 | Hong Kong | 26 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 23 |
| 5 | Australia | 16 |
| 6 | Macao | 10 |
| 7 | France | 7 |
| 8 | Malaysia | 7 |
| 9 | Singapore | 7 |
| 10 | Canada | 6 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [spatial spillover effects](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/spatial-spillover-effects.md) | 83 |
| 2 | [regional heterogeneity](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/regional-heterogeneity.md) | 72 |
| 3 | industrial upgrading | 49 |
| 4 | [green innovation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/green-innovation.md) | 47 |
| 5 | resource-based cities | 44 |
| 6 | [digital economy](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-economy.md) | 41 |
| 7 | [CO2 emissions](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/co2-emissions.md) | 34 |
| 8 | [environmental regulation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/environmental-regulation.md) | 34 |
| 9 | green technology innovation | 31 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,192 | 17.7 | [Environmental regulation, green technology innovation, and industrial structure upgrading: The road to the green transformation of Chinese cities](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105247) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2021-03-26 | Kerui Du, Yuanyuan Cheng, Xin Yao |
| 2 | 697 | 12.7 | [Digital economy and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.112927) | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 2022-04-07 | Wei David Zhang, Xuemeng Liu, Die Wang et al. |
| 3 | 567 | 12.4 | [Impact of the digital economy on high-quality urban economic development: Evidence from Chinese cities](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2023.106194) | [Economic Modelling](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-modelling.md) | 2023-01-13 | Bingnan Guo, Yu Wang, Hao Zhang et al. |
| 4 | 415 | 5.6 | [How does manufacturing agglomeration affect green economic efficiency?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104944) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2020-09-09 | Huaxi Yuan, Yidai Feng, Chien‐Chiang Lee et al. |
| 5 | 298 | 6.1 | [Does green innovation induce green total factor productivity? Novel findings from Chinese city level data](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122021) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2022-09-26 | Xin Zhao, Joanna Nakonieczny, Fauzia Jabeen et al. |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “Chinese cities”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-cities

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-chinese-cities,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “Chinese cities”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-cities}},
  urldate = {2026-11-04},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).