---
title: "ESG performance research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “ESG performance” appeared in 910 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (574), economics (130) and management (108)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/esg-performance
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/esg-performance.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 “ESG performance” appeared in 910 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (574), economics (130) and management (108). (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 “ESG performance”

Research on “ESG performance” 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 “ESG performance” appeared in 910 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (574), economics (130) and management (108).
- 294 of them were published in 2025, against 3 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Capital University of Economics and Business (24), Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (19) and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (19).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (204), International Review of Economics & Finance (87) and International Review of Financial Analysis (71).
- The most-cited of them is “The role of ESG performance during times of financial crisis: Evidence from COVID-19 in China” (Finance research letters, 2020), with 1,688 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 21 | 63 | 163 | 202 | 112 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 19 | 30 | 38 | 36 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 16 | 28 | 46 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 11 | 10 | 18 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 9 | 12 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 13 | 35 | 99 | 230 | 294 | 226 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 204 |
| 2 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 87 |
| 3 | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 71 |
| 4 | [Research in International Business and Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-international-business-and-finance.md) | 58 |
| 5 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 30 |
| 6 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 25 |
| 7 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 20 |
| 8 | [Pacific-Basin Finance Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/pacific-basin-finance-journal.md) | 19 |
| 9 | [International Journal of Disclosure and Governance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-disclosure-and-governance.md) | 15 |
| 10 | [Borsa Istanbul Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/borsa-istanbul-review.md) | 15 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Capital University of Economics and Business](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/capital-university-of-economics-and-business.md) | 24 |
| 2 | [Southwestern University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southwestern-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 19 |
| 3 | [Zhongnan University of Economics and Law](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhongnan-university-of-economics-and-law.md) | 19 |
| 4 | [Hunan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hunan-university.md) | 18 |
| 5 | [University of International Business and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-international-business-and-economics.md) | 17 |
| 6 | [Chongqing University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university.md) | 16 |
| 7 | [Central University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 15 |
| 8 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 15 |
| 9 | [City University of Macau](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/city-university-of-macau.md) | 14 |
| 10 | [Dongbei University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/dongbei-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 11 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 535 |
| 2 | United States | 79 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 65 |
| 4 | Italy | 46 |
| 5 | Australia | 42 |
| 6 | India | 29 |
| 7 | France | 28 |
| 8 | Malaysia | 26 |
| 9 | South Korea | 23 |
| 10 | Macao | 21 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Chinese listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-listed-companies.md) | 235 |
| 2 | [corporate governance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corporate-governance.md) | 193 |
| 3 | [corporate sustainability](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corporate-sustainability.md) | 135 |
| 4 | [financial constraints](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-constraints.md) | 129 |
| 5 | [state-owned enterprises](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/state-owned-enterprises.md) | 123 |
| 6 | [green innovation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/green-innovation.md) | 69 |
| 7 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 62 |
| 8 | [environmental performance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/environmental-performance.md) | 59 |
| 9 | [moderating effect](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/moderating-effect.md) | 54 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,688 | 22.6 | [The role of ESG performance during times of financial crisis: Evidence from COVID-19 in China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.frl.2020.101716) | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 2020-08-13 | David C. Broadstock, Kalok Chan, Louis T. W. Cheng et al. |
| 2 | 1,608 | 13.9 | [ESG performance and firm value: The moderating role of disclosure](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfj.2017.03.001) | [Global Finance Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/global-finance-journal.md) | 2017-03-09 | Ali M Fatemi, Martin Glaum, Stefanie Kaiser |
| 3 | 924 | 10.6 | [ESG practices and the cost of debt: Evidence from EU countries](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2019.102097) | [Critical Perspectives on Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/critical-perspectives-on-accounting.md) | 2019-08-07 | Yasser Eliwa, Ahmed Aboud, Ahmed Abo El Fetoh Saleh |
| 4 | 846 | 17.8 | [Impact of ESG performance on firm value and profitability](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bir.2022.11.006) | [Borsa Istanbul Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/borsa-istanbul-review.md) | 2022-11-17 | Mahmut Aydoğmuş, Güzhan Gülay, Korkmaz ERGUN |
| 5 | 574 | 10.6 | [ESG disclosure and Firm performance: A bibliometric and meta analysis](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ribaf.2022.101668) | [Research in International Business and Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-international-business-and-finance.md) | 2022-04-28 | Muhammad Arif Khan |

## Cite this page

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

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-esg-performance,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “ESG performance”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/esg-performance}},
  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/).