Papers on “principal-agent problem”
Research on “principal-agent problem” 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 “principal-agent problem” appeared in 1,060 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (511), economics (331) and accounting (88).
- 125 of them were published in 2025, against 95 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (19), Xiamen University (16) and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (16).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (50), International Review of Financial Analysis (37) and International Review of Economics & Finance (32).
- The most-cited of them is “Career concerns and multitasking local bureaucrats: Evidence of a target-based performance evaluation system in China” (Journal of Development Economics, 2018), with 681 citations.
Papers per year#
20172026 (so far)
| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finance | 45 | 28 | 31 | 39 | 53 | 49 | 59 | 87 | 72 | 48 |
| Economics | 32 | 31 | 29 | 35 | 31 | 26 | 46 | 44 | 35 | 22 |
| Accounting | 5 | 5 | 5 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 14 | 12 | 6 | 6 |
| Management | 6 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| Operations Research | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 2 |
| AI | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Information Systems | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Health Economics and Policy | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Marketing | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tourism and Hospitality | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 95 | 78 | 80 | 95 | 112 | 104 | 131 | 154 | 125 | 86 |
Where the papers come from#
| # | Journal | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Finance research letters | 50 |
| 2 | International Review of Financial Analysis | 37 |
| 3 | International Review of Economics & Finance | 32 |
| 4 | Pacific-Basin Finance Journal | 29 |
| 5 | Research in International Business and Finance | 28 |
| 6 | Journal of Banking & Finance | 18 |
| 7 | Games and Economic Behavior | 17 |
| 8 | Journal of Economic Theory | 16 |
| 9 | Economics Letters | 13 |
| 10 | Economic Analysis and Policy | 12 |
| # | Institution | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Southwestern University of Finance and Economics | 19 |
| 2 | Xiamen University | 16 |
| 3 | Zhongnan University of Economics and Law | 16 |
| 4 | Shanghai University of Finance and Economics | 13 |
| 5 | Capital University of Economics and Business | 11 |
| 6 | Central University of Finance and Economics | 11 |
| 7 | University of International Business and Economics | 11 |
| 8 | Nankai University | 9 |
| 9 | Fudan University | 8 |
| 10 | Guangdong University of Foreign Studies | 8 |
| # | Country | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 242 |
| 2 | United States | 122 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 54 |
| 4 | Australia | 32 |
| 5 | South Korea | 20 |
| 6 | Italy | 19 |
| 7 | Taiwan | 19 |
| 8 | Canada | 17 |
| 9 | France | 17 |
| 10 | Germany | 14 |
| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | corporate governance | 134 |
| 2 | information asymmetry | 82 |
| 3 | Chinese listed companies | 66 |
| 4 | financial constraints | 62 |
| 5 | China | 37 |
| 6 | state-owned enterprises | 33 |
| 7 | cash holdings | 27 |
| 8 | emerging markets | 23 |
| 9 | moral hazard | 23 |
Most-cited papers#
| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 681 | 6.5 | Career concerns and multitasking local bureaucrats: Evidence of a target-based performance evaluation system in China | Journal of Development Economics | 2018-02-13 | Yvonne Jie Chen, Pei Li, Yi Lu |
| 2 | 410 | 3.5 | Corporate Social Responsibility and Capital Allocation Efficiency | Journal of Corporate Finance | 2017-01-01 | Avishek Bhandari, David Javakhadze |
| 3 | 325 | 3.5 | Does social capital mitigate agency problems? Evidence from Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation | Journal of Financial Economics | 2019-02-14 | Chun Keung Hoi, Qiang Wu, Hao Zhang |
| 4 | 270 | 3.8 | Dividends and economic policy uncertainty: International evidence | Journal of Corporate Finance | 2020-11-20 | Najah Attig, Sadok El Ghoul, Omrane Guedhami et al. |
| 5 | 255 | 3.3 | Institutional investors' horizons and corporate employment decisions | Journal of Corporate Finance | 2020-05-08 | Mohamed Ghaly, Viet Anh Dang, Konstantinos Stathopoulos |
Cite this page
Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “principal-agent problem”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/principal-agent-problem
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-principal-agent-problem,
author = {{Scholar4AI}},
title = {Papers on “principal-agent problem”},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/principal-agent-problem}},
urldate = {2026-11-04},
note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}