---
title: "Foreign direct investment research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “foreign direct investment” appeared in 1,996 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,153), management (441) and finance (330)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/foreign-direct-investment
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/foreign-direct-investment.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 “foreign direct investment” appeared in 1,996 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,153), management (441) and finance (330). (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 “foreign direct investment”

Research on “foreign direct investment” 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 “foreign direct investment” appeared in 1,996 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,153), management (441) and finance (330).
- 220 of them were published in 2025, against 175 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Nankai University (16), Renmin University of China (16) and International Monetary Fund (12).
- The journals publishing most of them were Resources Policy (113), Finance research letters (48) and International Review of Economics & Finance (42).
- The most-cited of them is “Environmental degradation in France: The effects of FDI, financial development, and energy innovations” (Energy Economics, 2018), with 1,193 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) | 106 | 97 | 91 | 91 | 94 | 131 | 154 | 148 | 133 | 108 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 35 | 45 | 44 | 38 | 48 | 55 | 50 | 40 | 25 | 61 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 30 | 19 | 17 | 35 | 23 | 27 | 34 | 45 | 48 | 52 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 3 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 175 | 166 | 155 | 172 | 172 | 219 | 242 | 246 | 220 | 229 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 113 |
| 2 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 48 |
| 3 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 42 |
| 4 | [Future Business Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/future-business-journal.md) | 33 |
| 5 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 31 |
| 6 | [Economic Change and Restructuring](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-change-and-restructuring.md) | 31 |
| 7 | [Journal of International Business Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-business-policy.md) | 22 |
| 8 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 20 |
| 9 | [International Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-economics.md) | 20 |
| 10 | [International Economics and Economic Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-economics-and-economic-policy.md) | 19 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Nankai University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nankai-university.md) | 16 |
| 2 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 16 |
| 3 | [International Monetary Fund](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/international-monetary-fund.md) | 12 |
| 4 | [University of International Business and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-international-business-and-economics.md) | 12 |
| 5 | [Xiamen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xiamen-university.md) | 12 |
| 6 | [Zhongnan University of Economics and Law](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhongnan-university-of-economics-and-law.md) | 12 |
| 7 | Université de Yaoundé II | 11 |
| 8 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 11 |
| 9 | Azerbaijan State University of Economics | 10 |
| 10 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 10 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 353 |
| 2 | United States | 131 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 100 |
| 4 | France | 55 |
| 5 | India | 43 |
| 6 | Turkey | 39 |
| 7 | Italy | 38 |
| 8 | Germany | 34 |
| 9 | Saudi Arabia | 30 |
| 10 | Australia | 29 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [economic growth](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/economic-growth.md) | 131 |
| 2 | [multinational corporations](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/multinational-corporations.md) | 95 |
| 3 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 87 |
| 4 | [CO2 emissions](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/co2-emissions.md) | 75 |
| 5 | [institutional quality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/institutional-quality.md) | 71 |
| 6 | [developing countries](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/developing-countries.md) | 64 |
| 7 | trade openness | 58 |
| 8 | [sustainable development](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development.md) | 55 |
| 9 | [human capital](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/human-capital.md) | 51 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,193 | 12.0 | [Environmental degradation in France: The effects of FDI, financial development, and energy innovations](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2018.07.020) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2018-07-29 | Muhammad Qaiser Shahbaz, Muhammad Ali Nasir, David Roubaud |
| 2 | 873 | 13.2 | [Heterogeneous green innovations and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105269) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2021-04-28 | Le Emily Xu, Meiting Fan, Lili Yang et al. |
| 3 | 811 | 9.2 | [The impact of natural resources, human capital, and foreign direct investment on the ecological footprint: The case of the United States](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2019.101428) | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 2019-06-17 | Muhammad Wasif Zafar, Syed Anees Haider Zaidi, Naveed R. Khan et al. |
| 4 | 702 | 9.2 | [Influence of artificial intelligence on technological innovation: Evidence from the panel data of china's manufacturing sectors](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120142) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2020-06-17 | Liu Jun, Huihong Chang, Jeffrey Yi‐Lin Forrest et al. |
| 5 | 646 | 8.0 | [How does environmental regulation promote technological innovations in the industrial sector? Evidence from Chinese provincial panel data](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111310) | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 2020-02-24 | Xiaoling Ouyang, Qiong Li, Kerui Du |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Screening foreign investment for national security](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/screening-foreign-investment-for-national-security.md)

## Cite this page

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

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