---
title: "Public debt research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “public debt” appeared in 947 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (654), finance (250) and management (15)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/public-debt
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/public-debt.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 “public debt” appeared in 947 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (654), finance (250) and management (15). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “public debt”

Research on “public debt” 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 “public debt” appeared in 947 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (654), finance (250) and management (15).
- 118 of them were published in 2025, against 73 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were International Monetary Fund (19), University of Lisbon (16) and ISEG - Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (11).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (20), Journal of International Economics (17) and Journal of Policy Modeling (15).
- The most-cited of them is “Three green financial policies to address climate risks” (Journal of Financial Stability, 2021), with 305 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 53 | 62 | 58 | 66 | 60 | 60 | 79 | 74 | 75 | 67 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 20 | 23 | 17 | 27 | 25 | 31 | 21 | 28 | 35 | 23 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 73 | 86 | 79 | 97 | 89 | 97 | 104 | 108 | 118 | 96 |

## 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) | 20 |
| 2 | [Journal of International Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-economics.md) | 17 |
| 3 | [Journal of Policy Modeling](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-policy-modeling.md) | 15 |
| 4 | [European Journal of Political Economy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-journal-of-political-economy.md) | 15 |
| 5 | [Journal of International Money and Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-money-and-finance.md) | 15 |
| 6 | [Economic Modelling](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-modelling.md) | 14 |
| 7 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 14 |
| 8 | [IMF Economic Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/imf-economic-review.md) | 13 |
| 9 | [Economic Change and Restructuring](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-change-and-restructuring.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Journal of Macroeconomics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-macroeconomics.md) | 11 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [International Monetary Fund](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/international-monetary-fund.md) | 19 |
| 2 | [University of Lisbon](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-lisbon.md) | 16 |
| 3 | ISEG - Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão | 11 |
| 4 | [Centre for Economic Policy Research](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-for-economic-policy-research.md) | 9 |
| 5 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 8 |
| 6 | [Harvard University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/harvard-university.md) | 8 |
| 7 | [University College London](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-college-london.md) | 7 |
| 8 | Université d'Orléans | 7 |
| 9 | [Bocconi University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/bocconi-university.md) | 6 |
| 10 | Laboratoire d’Économie d’Orléans | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 110 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 55 |
| 3 | China | 41 |
| 4 | Italy | 41 |
| 5 | France | 39 |
| 6 | Germany | 31 |
| 7 | Portugal | 20 |
| 8 | Spain | 19 |
| 9 | Switzerland | 15 |
| 10 | Japan | 15 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [fiscal policy](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/fiscal-policy.md) | 82 |
| 2 | [economic growth](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/economic-growth.md) | 41 |
| 3 | debt sustainability | 36 |
| 4 | fiscal sustainability | 35 |
| 5 | fiscal rules | 34 |
| 6 | euro area | 32 |
| 7 | [inflation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/inflation.md) | 31 |
| 8 | [monetary policy](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/monetary-policy.md) | 29 |
| 9 | [emerging markets](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/emerging-markets.md) | 28 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 305 | 4.5 | [Three green financial policies to address climate risks](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfs.2021.100875) | [Journal of Financial Stability](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-financial-stability.md) | 2021-04-01 | Francesco Lamperti, Valentina Bosetti, Andrea Roventini B et al. |
| 2 | 291 | 2.7 | [The permanent effects of fiscal consolidations](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2017.11.007) | [Journal of International Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-economics.md) | 2017-12-02 | Antonio Fatás, Lawrence H. Summers |
| 3 | 245 | 2.3 | [Product market competition and debt choice](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2018.01.007) | [Journal of Corporate Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-corporate-finance.md) | 2018-01-30 | Sabri Boubaker, Walid Saffar, Syrine Sassi |
| 4 | 242 | 2.2 | [The EIRIN Flow-of-funds Behavioural Model of Green Fiscal Policies and Green Sovereign Bonds](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.07.029) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2017-08-22 | Irene Monasterolo, Marco Raberto |
| 5 | 237 | 2.6 | [Financial frictions and employment during the Great Depression](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2019.02.005) | [Journal of Financial Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-financial-economics.md) | 2019-02-27 | Efraim Benmelech, Carola Frydman, Dimitris Papanikolaou |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Public debt when rates exceed growth](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/public-debt-with-higher-rates.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “public debt”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/public-debt

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-public-debt,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “public debt”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/public-debt}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  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/).