---
title: "Developing countries research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “developing countries” appeared in 3,345 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,976), management (455) and finance (400)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/developing-countries
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/developing-countries.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 “developing countries” appeared in 3,345 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,976), management (455) and finance (400). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “developing countries”

Research on “developing countries” 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 “developing countries” appeared in 3,345 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,976), management (455) and finance (400).
- 383 of them were published in 2025, against 302 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were World Bank (45), Université de Yaoundé II (27) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (26).
- The journals publishing most of them were Resources Policy (66), Energy Economics (52) and Economic Change and Restructuring (41).
- The most-cited of them is “Impact of digital finance on financial inclusion and stability” (Borsa Istanbul Review, 2018), with 2,128 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) | 174 | 180 | 187 | 206 | 195 | 183 | 240 | 209 | 219 | 183 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 40 | 30 | 33 | 47 | 45 | 53 | 56 | 54 | 52 | 45 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 36 | 30 | 29 | 29 | 46 | 43 | 39 | 48 | 59 | 41 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 12 | 8 | 15 | 21 | 12 | 17 | 19 | 20 | 16 | 19 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 13 | 11 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 10 | 6 | 7 | 3 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 13 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 11 | 4 | 9 | 10 | 6 | 4 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 5 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 1 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 7 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 12 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 3 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 0 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 302 | 280 | 298 | 333 | 353 | 341 | 392 | 361 | 383 | 302 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 66 |
| 2 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 52 |
| 3 | [Economic Change and Restructuring](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-change-and-restructuring.md) | 41 |
| 4 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 40 |
| 5 | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 39 |
| 6 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 39 |
| 7 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 35 |
| 8 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 32 |
| 9 | [Economic Modelling](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-modelling.md) | 32 |
| 10 | [Journal of Development Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-development-economics.md) | 32 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [World Bank](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/world-bank.md) | 45 |
| 2 | Université de Yaoundé II | 27 |
| 3 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 26 |
| 4 | [International Monetary Fund](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/international-monetary-fund.md) | 25 |
| 5 | Université Clermont Auvergne | 17 |
| 6 | World Bank Group | 17 |
| 7 | Université de Dschang | 15 |
| 8 | Laboratoire d’Économie d’Orléans | 14 |
| 9 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 14 |
| 10 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 14 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 289 |
| 2 | United States | 269 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 178 |
| 4 | India | 115 |
| 5 | France | 108 |
| 6 | Australia | 61 |
| 7 | Italy | 60 |
| 8 | Germany | 53 |
| 9 | Turkey | 47 |
| 10 | Spain | 44 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [economic growth](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/economic-growth.md) | 121 |
| 2 | [developed countries](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/developed-countries.md) | 95 |
| 3 | [institutional quality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/institutional-quality.md) | 77 |
| 4 | [foreign direct investment](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/foreign-direct-investment.md) | 64 |
| 5 | [emerging markets](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/emerging-markets.md) | 62 |
| 6 | [financial development](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-development.md) | 58 |
| 7 | [income inequality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/income-inequality.md) | 57 |
| 8 | [CO2 emissions](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/co2-emissions.md) | 53 |
| 9 | [sustainable development](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development.md) | 51 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,128 | 20.6 | [Impact of digital finance on financial inclusion and stability](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bir.2017.12.003) | [Borsa Istanbul Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/borsa-istanbul-review.md) | 2018-03-18 | Peterson K Ozili |
| 2 | 1,556 | 19.4 | [A tale of two databases: the use of Web of Science and Scopus in academic papers](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03387-8) | [Scientometrics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/scientometrics.md) | 2020-02-22 | Junwen Zhu, Weishu Liu |
| 3 | 1,317 | 11.2 | [Determinants of Consumers' Green Purchase Behavior in a Developing Nation: Applying and Extending the Theory of Planned Behavior](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.12.019) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2017-01-21 | Rambalak Yadav, Govind Swaroop Pathak |
| 4 | 1,045 | 12.4 | [Barriers to the adoption of industry 4.0 technologies in the manufacturing sector: An inter-country comparative perspective](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2019.107546) | [International Journal of Production Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-production-economics.md) | 2019-11-02 | Alok Raj, Gourav Dwivedi, Ankit Sharma et al. |
| 5 | 965 | 10.4 | [The public value of E-Government – A literature review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2019.01.001) | [Government Information Quarterly](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/government-information-quarterly.md) | 2019-02-14 | Jean Damascene Twizeyimana, Annika Andersson |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “developing countries”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/developing-countries

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-developing-countries,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “developing countries”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/developing-countries}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  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/).