---
title: "Retail investors research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “retail investors” appeared in 816 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (620), economics (81) and accounting (44)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/retail-investors
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/retail-investors.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 “retail investors” appeared in 816 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (620), economics (81) and accounting (44). (as of 2026-11-04)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-04T00:03:46+09:00
window: 2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “retail investors”

Research on “retail investors” 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 “retail investors” appeared in 816 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (620), economics (81) and accounting (44).
- 103 of them were published in 2025, against 55 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (16), Tianjin University (9) and Central University of Finance and Economics (8).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (67), Pacific-Basin Finance Journal (45) and International Review of Economics & Finance (24).
- The most-cited of them is “Machine learning in the Chinese stock market” (Journal of Financial Economics, 2021), with 594 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) | 37 | 34 | 41 | 43 | 71 | 66 | 76 | 100 | 81 | 71 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 10 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 6 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 3 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 8 | 4 | 12 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 9 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 55 | 51 | 51 | 55 | 93 | 92 | 94 | 120 | 103 | 102 |

## 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) | 67 |
| 2 | [Pacific-Basin Finance Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/pacific-basin-finance-journal.md) | 45 |
| 3 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 24 |
| 4 | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 23 |
| 5 | [Journal of Banking & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-banking-finance.md) | 20 |
| 6 | [Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-behavioral-and-experimental-finance.md) | 19 |
| 7 | [Research in International Business and Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-international-business-and-finance.md) | 14 |
| 8 | [Journal of Financial Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-financial-economics.md) | 14 |
| 9 | [Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions and Money](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-financial-markets-institutions-and-money.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Review of Accounting Studies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/review-of-accounting-studies.md) | 10 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Southwestern University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southwestern-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 16 |
| 2 | [Tianjin University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tianjin-university.md) | 9 |
| 3 | [Central University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 8 |
| 4 | [Capital University of Economics and Business](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/capital-university-of-economics-and-business.md) | 7 |
| 5 | [East China University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/east-china-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 7 |
| 6 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 7 |
| 7 | National Chengchi University | 6 |
| 8 | [Stanford University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/stanford-university.md) | 6 |
| 9 | [Sun Yat-sen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sun-yat-sen-university.md) | 6 |
| 10 | [Sungkyunkwan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sungkyunkwan-university.md) | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 145 |
| 2 | United States | 91 |
| 3 | Germany | 40 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 36 |
| 5 | Taiwan | 25 |
| 6 | South Korea | 23 |
| 7 | Australia | 21 |
| 8 | India | 18 |
| 9 | France | 14 |
| 10 | Hong Kong | 13 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [institutional investors](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/institutional-investors.md) | 81 |
| 2 | behavioral finance | 48 |
| 3 | [Chinese stock market](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-stock-market.md) | 45 |
| 4 | investor behavior | 39 |
| 5 | [investor sentiment](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/investor-sentiment.md) | 37 |
| 6 | investor attention | 30 |
| 7 | [information asymmetry](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/information-asymmetry.md) | 24 |
| 8 | [stock returns](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/stock-returns.md) | 24 |
| 9 | [corporate governance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corporate-governance.md) | 21 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 594 | 9.5 | [Machine learning in the Chinese stock market](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.08.017) | [Journal of Financial Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-financial-economics.md) | 2021-08-27 | Markus Leippold, Qian Wang, Wenyu Zhou |
| 2 | 281 | 3.1 | [Investors’ choices between cash and voting rights: Evidence from dual-class equity crowdfunding](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2019.01.014) | [Research Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-policy.md) | 2019-04-02 | Douglas J. Cumming, Michele Meoli, Silvio Vismara A |
| 3 | 273 | 3.8 | [Has financial attitude impacted the trading activity of retail investors during the COVID-19 pandemic?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102341) | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 2020-10-09 | Manish Talwar, Shalini Talwar, Puneet Kaur et al. |
| 4 | 262 | 3.2 | [Investor Attention and Global Market Returns during the COVID-19 Crisis](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2020.101616) | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 2020-01-01 | Lee A. Smales |
| 5 | 255 | 5.1 | [Retail trader sophistication and stock market quality: Evidence from brokerage outages](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2022.08.002) | [Journal of Financial Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-financial-economics.md) | 2022-08-30 | Gregory W. Eaton, T. Clifton Green, Brian Roseman et al. |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Zero-day options and intraday volatility](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/zero-day-options-and-intraday-volatility.md)

## Cite this page

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

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