---
title: "Spatial spillover effects research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “spatial spillover effects” appeared in 1,026 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (642), finance (178) and operations research (80)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/spatial-spillover-effects
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/spatial-spillover-effects.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 “spatial spillover effects” appeared in 1,026 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (642), finance (178) and operations research (80). (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 “spatial spillover effects”

Research on “spatial spillover effects” 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 “spatial spillover effects” appeared in 1,026 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (642), finance (178) and operations research (80).
- 211 of them were published in 2025, against 34 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Xiamen University (19), City University of Macau (15) and Wuhan University (15).
- The journals publishing most of them were International Review of Economics & Finance (76), Economic Analysis and Policy (55) and Energy Economics (47).
- The most-cited of them is “How do environmental regulation and environmental decentralization affect green total factor energy efficiency: Evidence from China” (Energy Economics, 2020), with 880 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) | 28 | 26 | 27 | 52 | 50 | 75 | 75 | 87 | 114 | 108 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 21 | 30 | 58 | 51 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 12 | 9 | 8 | 13 | 14 | 14 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 12 | 10 | 12 | 15 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 7 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 34 | 31 | 38 | 65 | 74 | 102 | 119 | 145 | 211 | 207 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 76 |
| 2 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 55 |
| 3 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 47 |
| 4 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 33 |
| 5 | [The Annals of Regional Science](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-annals-of-regional-science.md) | 29 |
| 6 | [Economic Change and Restructuring](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-change-and-restructuring.md) | 28 |
| 7 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 21 |
| 8 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 20 |
| 9 | [Structural Change and Economic Dynamics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/structural-change-and-economic-dynamics.md) | 19 |
| 10 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 18 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Xiamen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xiamen-university.md) | 19 |
| 2 | [City University of Macau](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/city-university-of-macau.md) | 15 |
| 3 | [Wuhan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/wuhan-university.md) | 15 |
| 4 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 14 |
| 5 | [Beijing Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-institute-of-technology.md) | 13 |
| 6 | [Sichuan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sichuan-university.md) | 13 |
| 7 | [Zhongnan University of Economics and Law](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhongnan-university-of-economics-and-law.md) | 13 |
| 8 | [Central University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 12 |
| 9 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Nanjing University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanjing-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 11 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 510 |
| 2 | United States | 71 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 44 |
| 4 | Italy | 29 |
| 5 | Hong Kong | 22 |
| 6 | Macao | 20 |
| 7 | Spain | 18 |
| 8 | Australia | 16 |
| 9 | South Korea | 14 |
| 10 | Japan | 11 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 205 |
| 2 | [regional heterogeneity](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/regional-heterogeneity.md) | 87 |
| 3 | [Chinese cities](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-cities.md) | 83 |
| 4 | [digital economy](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-economy.md) | 64 |
| 5 | industrial upgrading | 54 |
| 6 | prefecture-level cities | 52 |
| 7 | [green innovation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/green-innovation.md) | 51 |
| 8 | [regional disparities](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/regional-disparities.md) | 48 |
| 9 | [environmental regulation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/environmental-regulation.md) | 45 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 880 | 11.7 | [How do environmental regulation and environmental decentralization affect green total factor energy efficiency: Evidence from China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104880) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2020-07-24 | Haitao Wu, Yu Hao, Siyu Ren |
| 2 | 856 | 15.5 | [Innovation in emerging economies: Research on the digital economy driving high-quality green development](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.03.041) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2022-03-25 | Dan Ma, Qing Zhu |
| 3 | 697 | 12.7 | [Digital economy and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.112927) | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 2022-04-07 | Wei David Zhang, Xuemeng Liu, Die Wang et al. |
| 4 | 628 | 12.8 | [Effects of digital economy on carbon emission reduction: New evidence from China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113271) | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 2022-10-01 | Ming Yi, Yafen Liu, Mingyue Selena Sheng et al. |
| 5 | 540 | 8.0 | [Does internet development improve green total factor energy efficiency? Evidence from China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112247) | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 2021-03-27 | Haitao Wu, Yu Hao, Siyu Ren et al. |

## Cite this page

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

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