---
title: "Political connections research: papers and trends"
description: "Historical profile (data snapshot 2026-11-04). From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “political connections” appeared in 847 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (387), economics (206) and management (172)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/political-connections
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/political-connections.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "Historical profile (data snapshot 2026-11-04). From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “political connections” appeared in 847 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (387), economics (206) and management (172)."
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-04T18:03:26+09:00
window: 2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “political connections”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/5.md)

Historical profile. Data snapshot: 2026-11-04. This profile is outside the current selection; the figures and research below are retained from that snapshot. Browse the directory for other profiles.

Research on “political connections” 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 “political connections” appeared in 847 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (387), economics (206) and management (172).
- 134 of them were published in 2025, against 46 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Xi'an Jiaotong University (17), Central University of Finance and Economics (12) and Chongqing University (12).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (39), International Review of Financial Analysis (32) and International Review of Economics & Finance (29).
- The most-cited of them is “The real effect of legal institutions: Environmental courts and firm environmental protection expenditure” (Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2019), with 574 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) | 15 | 27 | 27 | 36 | 42 | 44 | 35 | 55 | 73 | 33 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 16 | 5 | 12 | 20 | 26 | 29 | 18 | 23 | 37 | 20 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 11 | 25 | 17 | 12 | 21 | 15 | 20 | 19 | 14 | 18 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 4 | 9 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 4 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 46 | 67 | 62 | 81 | 96 | 96 | 82 | 108 | 134 | 75 |

## 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) | 39 |
| 2 | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 32 |
| 3 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 29 |
| 4 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 21 |
| 5 | [Pacific-Basin Finance Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/pacific-basin-finance-journal.md) | 16 |
| 6 | [Research in International Business and Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-international-business-and-finance.md) | 14 |
| 7 | [Journal of Business Ethics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-ethics.md) | 13 |
| 8 | [Asia Pacific Journal of Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/asia-pacific-journal-of-management.md) | 12 |
| 9 | [Journal of Corporate Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-corporate-finance.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Emerging Markets Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/emerging-markets-review.md) | 12 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 17 |
| 2 | [Central University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 12 |
| 3 | [Chongqing University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university.md) | 12 |
| 4 | [Guangdong University of Foreign Studies](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/guangdong-university-of-foreign-studies.md) | 12 |
| 5 | [Southwestern University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southwestern-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 12 |
| 6 | [Tianjin University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tianjin-university.md) | 12 |
| 7 | [Zhongnan University of Economics and Law](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhongnan-university-of-economics-and-law.md) | 12 |
| 8 | [Central South University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-south-university.md) | 11 |
| 9 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 11 |
| 10 | [Xiamen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xiamen-university.md) | 11 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 293 |
| 2 | United States | 49 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 34 |
| 4 | Australia | 33 |
| 5 | Hong Kong | 19 |
| 6 | Canada | 14 |
| 7 | France | 14 |
| 8 | India | 10 |
| 9 | Macao | 10 |
| 10 | New Zealand | 10 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 92 |
| 2 | [Chinese listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-listed-companies.md) | 85 |
| 3 | [state-owned enterprises](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/state-owned-enterprises.md) | 81 |
| 4 | [corporate governance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corporate-governance.md) | 55 |
| 5 | [financial constraints](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-constraints.md) | 52 |
| 6 | [private enterprises](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/private-enterprises.md) | 27 |
| 7 | [Chinese enterprises](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-enterprises.md) | 24 |
| 8 | [information asymmetry](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/information-asymmetry.md) | 22 |
| 9 | [emerging markets](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/emerging-markets.md) | 21 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 574 | 6.6 | [The real effect of legal institutions: Environmental courts and firm environmental protection expenditure](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2019.102254) | [Journal of Environmental Economics and Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-environmental-economics-and-management.md) | 2019-08-13 | Qi Zhang, Yu Zhi, Dongmin Kong |
| 2 | 546 | 11.5 | [Can enterprise digitization improve ESG performance?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2022.106101) | [Economic Modelling](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-modelling.md) | 2022-11-14 | Mingyue Fang, Huihua Nie, Xinyi Shen |
| 3 | 372 | 5.0 | [COVID-19 and business failures: The paradoxes of experience, scale, and scope for theory and practice](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2020.09.002) | [European Management Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-management-journal.md) | 2020-09-06 | Joseph Amankwah‐Amoah, Zaheer Khan, Geoffrey Wood |
| 4 | 349 | 3.0 | [Political connections and corporate investments: Evidence from the recent anti-corruption campaign in China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2017.03.005) | [Journal of Banking & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-banking-finance.md) | 2017-03-06 | Xiaofei Pan, Gary Gang Tian |
| 5 | 302 | 4.4 | [Senior management's academic experience and corporate green innovation](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120664) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2021-02-06 | Kang He, Wanyi Chen, Liguang Zhang |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Do political connections still pay after the anti-corruption campaign?](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/political-connections-after-the-anti-corruption-campaign.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “political connections”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/political-connections

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-political-connections,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “political connections”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/political-connections}},
  urldate = {2026-11-04},
  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/).