---
title: "Regional disparities research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “regional disparities” appeared in 1,229 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (748), operations research (142) and finance (113)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/regional-disparities
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/regional-disparities.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 “regional disparities” appeared in 1,229 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (748), operations research (142) and finance (113). (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 “regional disparities”

Research on “regional disparities” 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 “regional disparities” appeared in 1,229 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (748), operations research (142) and finance (113).
- 261 of them were published in 2025, against 68 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were University of International Business and Economics (11), Xi'an Jiaotong University (11) and Chongqing University (10).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (49), The Annals of Regional Science (43) and Socio-Economic Planning Sciences (42).
- The most-cited of them is “Digital economy: An innovation driver for total factor productivity” (Journal of Business Research, 2021), with 1,157 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 | 34 | 49 | 60 | 52 | 61 | 85 | 100 | 133 | 121 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 2 | 8 | 5 | 13 | 11 | 7 | 16 | 24 | 27 | 29 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 29 | 42 | 24 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 7 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 19 | 13 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 14 | 4 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 3 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 12 | 8 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 68 | 51 | 73 | 84 | 88 | 96 | 128 | 174 | 261 | 206 |

## 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) | 49 |
| 2 | [The Annals of Regional Science](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-annals-of-regional-science.md) | 43 |
| 3 | [Socio-Economic Planning Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/socio-economic-planning-sciences.md) | 42 |
| 4 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 41 |
| 5 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 35 |
| 6 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 25 |
| 7 | [Land Use Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/land-use-policy.md) | 23 |
| 8 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 23 |
| 9 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 22 |
| 10 | [Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-a-policy-and-practice.md) | 18 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [University of International Business and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-international-business-and-economics.md) | 11 |
| 2 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 11 |
| 3 | [Chongqing University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university.md) | 10 |
| 4 | [Beijing Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-institute-of-technology.md) | 9 |
| 5 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 9 |
| 6 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 9 |
| 7 | [Tsinghua University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tsinghua-university.md) | 9 |
| 8 | [Zhejiang Gongshang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhejiang-gongshang-university.md) | 9 |
| 9 | [Zhejiang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhejiang-university.md) | 9 |
| 10 | Bank of Italy | 8 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 362 |
| 2 | Italy | 109 |
| 3 | United States | 66 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 58 |
| 5 | Spain | 39 |
| 6 | Japan | 26 |
| 7 | France | 21 |
| 8 | Germany | 20 |
| 9 | India | 19 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 19 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 180 |
| 2 | [digital economy](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-economy.md) | 53 |
| 3 | [spatial spillover effects](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/spatial-spillover-effects.md) | 48 |
| 4 | Chinese provinces | 44 |
| 5 | [income inequality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/income-inequality.md) | 34 |
| 6 | [human capital](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/human-capital.md) | 31 |
| 7 | [Italy](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/italy.md) | 29 |
| 8 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 25 |
| 9 | digital divide | 22 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,157 | 19.0 | [Digital economy: An innovation driver for total factor productivity](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.09.061) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2021-10-11 | Wenrong Pan, Tao Xie, Zhuwang Wang et al. |
| 2 | 567 | 12.4 | [Impact of the digital economy on high-quality urban economic development: Evidence from Chinese cities](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2023.106194) | [Economic Modelling](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-modelling.md) | 2023-01-13 | Bingnan Guo, Yu Wang, Hao Zhang et al. |
| 3 | 553 | 4.8 | [Spatializing energy justice](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.064) | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 2017-04-08 | Stefan Bouzarovski, Neil Simcock |
| 4 | 448 | 7.5 | [Research on the impact of green finance on the upgrading of China's regional industrial structure from the perspective of sustainable development](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2021.102436) | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 2021-11-02 | Xinyue Wang, Qing Wang |
| 5 | 403 | 5.8 | [Which night lights data should we use in economics, and where?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102602) | [Journal of Development Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-development-economics.md) | 2020-12-31 | John K. Gibson, Susan Olivia, Geua Boe‐Gibson et al. |

## Cite this page

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

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