---
title: "Sub-Saharan Africa research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “sub-Saharan Africa” appeared in 1,133 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (730), management (131) and finance (77)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sub-saharan-africa
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sub-saharan-africa.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 “sub-Saharan Africa” appeared in 1,133 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (730), management (131) and finance (77). (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 “sub-Saharan Africa”

Research on “sub-Saharan Africa” 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 “sub-Saharan Africa” appeared in 1,133 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (730), management (131) and finance (77).
- 151 of them were published in 2025, against 80 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Université de Yaoundé II (26), World Bank (21) and Université de Dschang (15).
- The journals publishing most of them were International Journal of Educational Development (32), World Development (30) and Resources Policy (26).
- The most-cited of them is “Economic growth, CO2 emissions and energy consumption: What causes what and where?” (Energy Economics, 2018), with 854 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) | 47 | 64 | 65 | 76 | 67 | 78 | 82 | 77 | 94 | 80 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 9 | 6 | 12 | 14 | 9 | 18 | 16 | 10 | 16 | 21 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 10 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 13 | 11 | 8 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 3 | 3 | 5 | 15 | 11 | 6 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 4 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 7 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 10 | 12 | 9 | 9 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 0 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 80 | 84 | 91 | 125 | 105 | 114 | 131 | 128 | 151 | 124 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [International Journal of Educational Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-development.md) | 32 |
| 2 | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 30 |
| 3 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 26 |
| 4 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 23 |
| 5 | [Future Business Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/future-business-journal.md) | 20 |
| 6 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 15 |
| 7 | [International Economics and Economic Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-economics-and-economic-policy.md) | 15 |
| 8 | [Journal of Development Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-development-economics.md) | 14 |
| 9 | [Food Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/food-policy.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Economic Change and Restructuring](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-change-and-restructuring.md) | 12 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | Université de Yaoundé II | 26 |
| 2 | [World Bank](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/world-bank.md) | 21 |
| 3 | Université de Dschang | 15 |
| 4 | [University of Johannesburg](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-johannesburg.md) | 14 |
| 5 | Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology | 12 |
| 6 | University of Ghana | 11 |
| 7 | [University of Oxford](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-oxford.md) | 10 |
| 8 | University of South Africa | 10 |
| 9 | World Bank Group | 10 |
| 10 | University of Cape Coast | 9 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 117 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 87 |
| 3 | South Africa | 54 |
| 4 | Ghana | 51 |
| 5 | China | 46 |
| 6 | Cameroon | 40 |
| 7 | France | 34 |
| 8 | Germany | 32 |
| 9 | Nigeria | 32 |
| 10 | Australia | 24 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [economic growth](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/economic-growth.md) | 46 |
| 2 | [institutional quality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/institutional-quality.md) | 40 |
| 3 | [financial inclusion](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-inclusion.md) | 38 |
| 4 | [foreign direct investment](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/foreign-direct-investment.md) | 32 |
| 5 | [developing countries](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/developing-countries.md) | 28 |
| 6 | [financial development](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-development.md) | 26 |
| 7 | [corruption](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corruption.md) | 24 |
| 8 | [income inequality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/income-inequality.md) | 23 |
| 9 | [moderating effect](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/moderating-effect.md) | 20 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 854 | 8.6 | [Economic growth, CO2 emissions and energy consumption: What causes what and where?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2018.07.022) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2018-07-27 | Alex Opoku Acheampong |
| 2 | 707 | 8.3 | [Digitalization and economic growth: A comparative analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa and OECD economies](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2019.101856) | [Telecommunications Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/telecommunications-policy.md) | 2019-09-26 | Godwin Aloyce Myovella, Mehmet Karaçuka, Justus Haucap |
| 3 | 622 | 7.1 | [Modelling for insight: Does financial development improve environmental quality?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2019.06.025) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2019-07-01 | Alex Opoku Acheampong |
| 4 | 544 | 6.9 | [ICT and environmental quality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Effects and transmission channels](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120028) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2020-03-26 | Désiré Avom, Hilaire Nkengfack, Hervé Kaffo Fotio et al. |
| 5 | 438 | 4.0 | [Enhancing ICT for environmental sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.09.022) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2017-10-12 | Simplice Anutechia Asongu, Sara le Roux, Nicholas B. Biekpe |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “sub-Saharan Africa”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sub-saharan-africa

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