---
title: "Low- and middle-income countries research"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “low- and middle-income countries” appeared in 1,180 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in health economics and policy (774), economics (227) and higher education and research (58)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/low-and-middle-income-countries
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/low-and-middle-income-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 “low- and middle-income countries” appeared in 1,180 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in health economics and policy (774), economics (227) and higher education and… (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 “low- and middle-income countries”

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

Research on “low- and middle-income 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 “low- and middle-income countries” appeared in 1,180 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in health economics and policy (774), economics (227) and higher education and research (58).
- 146 of them were published in 2025, against 73 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Harvard University (23), London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (21) and University of Oxford (20).
- The journals publishing most of them were Social Science & Medicine (50), International Journal for Equity in Health (43) and Health Research Policy and Systems (40).
- The most-cited of them is “The Trade-off Between Income Inequality and Carbon Dioxide Emissions” (Ecological Economics, 2017), with 358 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 60 | 74 | 63 | 92 | 121 | 75 | 63 | 73 | 77 | 76 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 8 | 11 | 16 | 18 | 24 | 22 | 30 | 38 | 26 | 34 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 14 | 10 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 8 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 6 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 73 | 91 | 90 | 123 | 165 | 116 | 108 | 127 | 146 | 141 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Social Science & Medicine](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/social-science-medicine.md) | 50 |
| 2 | [International Journal for Equity in Health](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-for-equity-in-health.md) | 43 |
| 3 | [Health Research Policy and Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/health-research-policy-and-systems.md) | 40 |
| 4 | [Globalization and Health](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/globalization-and-health.md) | 26 |
| 5 | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 25 |
| 6 | [International Journal of Educational Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-development.md) | 23 |
| 7 | [Human Resources for Health](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/human-resources-for-health.md) | 23 |
| 8 | [Food Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/food-policy.md) | 17 |
| 9 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 15 |
| 10 | [Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/cost-effectiveness-and-resource-allocation.md) | 14 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Harvard University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/harvard-university.md) | 23 |
| 2 | [London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/london-school-of-hygiene-tropical-medicine.md) | 21 |
| 3 | [University of Oxford](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-oxford.md) | 20 |
| 4 | [Johns Hopkins University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/johns-hopkins-university.md) | 19 |
| 5 | World Health Organization | 18 |
| 6 | International Food Policy Research Institute | 14 |
| 7 | University of Ghana | 13 |
| 8 | [World Bank](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/world-bank.md) | 12 |
| 9 | [King's College London](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/king-s-college-london.md) | 11 |
| 10 | [London School of Economics and Political Science](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/london-school-of-economics-and-political-science.md) | 11 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 178 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 131 |
| 3 | China | 45 |
| 4 | Germany | 43 |
| 5 | Canada | 42 |
| 6 | Australia | 40 |
| 7 | Switzerland | 40 |
| 8 | India | 39 |
| 9 | South Africa | 29 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 25 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 41 |
| 2 | [health equity](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/health-equity.md) | 24 |
| 3 | universal health coverage | 23 |
| 4 | [Sustainable Development Goals](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development-goals.md) | 21 |
| 5 | [cost-effectiveness](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/cost-effectiveness.md) | 17 |
| 6 | [India](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/india.md) | 15 |
| 7 | high-income countries | 15 |
| 8 | [health care access](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/health-care-access.md) | 14 |
| 9 | health care financing | 14 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 358 | 3.2 | [The Trade-off Between Income Inequality and Carbon Dioxide Emissions](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.034) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2017-07-07 | Nicole Grunewald, Stephan Klasen, Inmaculada Martínez‐Zarzoso et al. |
| 2 | 284 | 3.0 | [Poverty and distributional effects of carbon pricing in low- and middle-income countries – A global comparative analysis](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.11.015) | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 2018-12-07 | Ira Irina Dorband, Michael Jakob, Matthias Kalkuhl et al. |
| 3 | 262 | 3.4 | [Remittances and economic growth: A meta-analysis](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105021) | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 2020-06-05 | Alina Cazachevici, Tomáš Havránek, Roman Horváth |
| 4 | 255 | 3.8 | [An inquiry into the nexus between energy poverty and income inequality in the light of global evidence](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105289) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2021-04-21 | Canh Phuc Nguyen, Muhammad Ali Nasir |
| 5 | 252 | 2.6 | [The effectiveness of agricultural certification in developing countries: A systematic review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.08.001) | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 2018-09-05 | Carlos Oya, Florian Schaefer, Dafni Skalidou |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “low- and middle-income countries”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/low-and-middle-income-countries

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-low-and-middle-income-countries,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “low- and middle-income countries”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/low-and-middle-income-countries}},
  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/).