Papers on “human capital”
Research on “human capital” 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. Also as Markdown.
← Top research keywords · Keyword trends
Key findings#
- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “human capital” appeared in 2,206 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,297), management (402) and finance (261).
- 325 of them were published in 2025, against 162 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Renmin University of China (21), Lebanese American University (19) and University of International Business and Economics (19).
- The journals publishing most of them were Resources Policy (84), Finance research letters (76) and Economic Analysis and Policy (60).
- The most-cited of them is “Moving towards a sustainable environment: The dynamic linkage between natural resources, human capital, urbanization, economic growth, and ecological footprint in China” (Resources Policy, 2020), with 1,194 citations.
Papers per year#
20172026 (so far)
| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economics | 102 | 91 | 120 | 106 | 122 | 119 | 161 | 168 | 174 | 134 |
| Management | 36 | 30 | 22 | 38 | 51 | 42 | 38 | 50 | 45 | 50 |
| Finance | 7 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 10 | 17 | 21 | 42 | 77 | 62 |
| Higher Education and Research | 7 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 14 | 5 | 12 |
| Operations Research | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 7 |
| Tourism and Hospitality | 1 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 2 |
| Health Economics and Policy | 3 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Information Systems | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 2 |
| Accounting | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| Marketing | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| AI | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 162 | 146 | 167 | 186 | 209 | 197 | 245 | 291 | 325 | 278 |
Where the papers come from#
| # | Journal | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Resources Policy | 84 |
| 2 | Finance research letters | 76 |
| 3 | Economic Analysis and Policy | 60 |
| 4 | International Review of Economics & Finance | 57 |
| 5 | Energy Economics | 36 |
| 6 | Economic Change and Restructuring | 29 |
| 7 | Technological Forecasting and Social Change | 28 |
| 8 | Economic Modelling | 27 |
| 9 | Journal of Innovation & Knowledge | 25 |
| 10 | World Development | 23 |
| # | Institution | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Renmin University of China | 21 |
| 2 | Lebanese American University | 19 |
| 3 | University of International Business and Economics | 19 |
| 4 | Zhongnan University of Economics and Law | 19 |
| 5 | Shanghai University of Finance and Economics | 17 |
| 6 | Xi'an Jiaotong University | 16 |
| 7 | Shandong University | 15 |
| 8 | Southwestern University of Finance and Economics | 15 |
| 9 | Xiamen University | 15 |
| 10 | Jilin University | 14 |
| # | Country | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 533 |
| 2 | United States | 185 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 111 |
| 4 | Australia | 57 |
| 5 | Italy | 53 |
| 6 | Germany | 50 |
| 7 | Spain | 42 |
| 8 | India | 39 |
| 9 | France | 37 |
| 10 | Turkey | 33 |
| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 162 |
| 2 | economic growth | 86 |
| 3 | regional heterogeneity | 65 |
| 4 | social capital | 59 |
| 5 | sustainable development | 53 |
| 6 | foreign direct investment | 51 |
| 7 | digital transformation | 48 |
| 8 | educational attainment | 46 |
| 9 | Chinese listed companies | 44 |
Most-cited papers#
Cite this page
Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “human capital”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/human-capital
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-human-capital,
author = {{Scholar4AI}},
title = {Papers on “human capital”},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/human-capital}},
urldate = {2026-11-03},
note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}