---
title: "Inverted U-shaped relationship research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “inverted U-shaped relationship” appeared in 1,071 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (339), economics (335) and finance (167)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/inverted-u-shaped-relationship
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/inverted-u-shaped-relationship.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 “inverted U-shaped relationship” appeared in 1,071 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (339), economics (335) and finance (167). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “inverted U-shaped relationship”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/4.md)

Research on “inverted U-shaped relationship” 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 “inverted U-shaped relationship” appeared in 1,071 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (339), economics (335) and finance (167).
- 190 of them were published in 2025, against 64 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Renmin University of China (16), Xi'an Jiaotong University (15) and Sichuan University (14).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (51), Journal of Business Research (31) and International Review of Economics & Finance (29).
- The most-cited of them is “ICT and environmental sustainability: A global perspective” (Telematics and Informatics, 2017), with 633 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 19 | 19 | 20 | 17 | 38 | 35 | 46 | 46 | 50 | 49 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 31 | 19 | 25 | 37 | 26 | 30 | 39 | 33 | 57 | 38 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 5 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 25 | 36 | 42 | 28 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 3 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 13 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 10 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 12 | 9 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 13 | 4 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 9 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 64 | 50 | 62 | 74 | 91 | 100 | 132 | 149 | 190 | 159 |

## 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) | 51 |
| 2 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 31 |
| 3 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 29 |
| 4 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 27 |
| 5 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 22 |
| 6 | [Technovation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technovation.md) | 18 |
| 7 | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 18 |
| 8 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 16 |
| 9 | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 15 |
| 10 | [Asia Pacific Journal of Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/asia-pacific-journal-of-management.md) | 14 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 16 |
| 2 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 15 |
| 3 | [Sichuan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sichuan-university.md) | 14 |
| 4 | [Jilin University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/jilin-university.md) | 13 |
| 5 | [Nanjing University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanjing-university.md) | 13 |
| 6 | [Sun Yat-sen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sun-yat-sen-university.md) | 13 |
| 7 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 12 |
| 8 | [Zhejiang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhejiang-university.md) | 12 |
| 9 | [Dalian University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/dalian-university-of-technology.md) | 9 |
| 10 | [Huazhong University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/huazhong-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 9 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 404 |
| 2 | United States | 82 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 39 |
| 4 | Australia | 31 |
| 5 | France | 24 |
| 6 | Hong Kong | 21 |
| 7 | Canada | 20 |
| 8 | Germany | 20 |
| 9 | Italy | 19 |
| 10 | Spain | 18 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 55 |
| 2 | [moderating effect](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/moderating-effect.md) | 52 |
| 3 | [Chinese listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-listed-companies.md) | 49 |
| 4 | nonlinear effects | 38 |
| 5 | [economic growth](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/economic-growth.md) | 32 |
| 6 | [manufacturing companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/manufacturing-companies.md) | 22 |
| 7 | [environmental regulation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/environmental-regulation.md) | 21 |
| 8 | [firm performance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/firm-performance.md) | 21 |
| 9 | [green innovation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/green-innovation.md) | 21 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 633 | 5.4 | [ICT and environmental sustainability: A global perspective](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.01.001) | [Telematics and Informatics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/telematics-and-informatics.md) | 2017-01-10 | Dolores Añón Higón, Roya Gholami, Farid Shirazi |
| 2 | 512 | 4.5 | [How does urbanization affect carbon dioxide emissions? A cross-country panel data analysis](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.072) | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 2017-04-12 | Ning Zhang, Keren Yu, Zhongfei Chen |
| 3 | 435 | 4.4 | [More is not always better: Effects of collaboration breadth and depth on radical and incremental innovation performance at the project level](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.07.014) | [Research Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-policy.md) | 2018-08-22 | Sebastian Kobarg, Jutta Stumpf-Wollersheim, Isabell Melanie Welpe |
| 4 | 398 | 4.1 | [The Environmental Kuznets Curve in the OECD: 1870–2014](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2018.09.004) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2018-09-01 | Sefa Awaworyi Churchill, John Nkwoma Inekwe, Kris Ivanovski et al. |
| 5 | 304 | 4.3 | [The nexus between CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and economic growth in the U.S.](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2020.12.007) | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 2020-12-09 | Mahmoud Salari, Roxana J. Javid, Hamid Noghanibehambari |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “inverted U-shaped relationship”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/inverted-u-shaped-relationship

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-inverted-u-shaped-relationship,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “inverted U-shaped relationship”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/inverted-u-shaped-relationship}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  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/).