---
title: "Total factor productivity research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “total factor productivity” appeared in 1,259 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (755), finance (318) and management (88)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/total-factor-productivity
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/total-factor-productivity.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 “total factor productivity” appeared in 1,259 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (755), finance (318) and management (88). (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 “total factor productivity”

Research on “total factor productivity” 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 “total factor productivity” appeared in 1,259 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (755), finance (318) and management (88).
- 244 of them were published in 2025, against 81 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (26), Central University of Finance and Economics (20) and Xiamen University (19).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (98), International Review of Economics & Finance (70) and Economic Analysis and Policy (57).
- 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) | 59 | 53 | 66 | 59 | 63 | 90 | 84 | 85 | 100 | 96 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 10 | 7 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 14 | 34 | 61 | 111 | 58 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 11 | 13 | 12 | 10 | 14 | 15 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 6 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 15 | 8 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 81 | 70 | 83 | 73 | 82 | 128 | 142 | 171 | 244 | 185 |

## 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) | 98 |
| 2 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 70 |
| 3 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 57 |
| 4 | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 30 |
| 5 | [Economic Modelling](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-modelling.md) | 26 |
| 6 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 25 |
| 7 | [Structural Change and Economic Dynamics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/structural-change-and-economic-dynamics.md) | 18 |
| 8 | [Journal of Asian Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-asian-economics.md) | 18 |
| 9 | [Research in International Business and Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-international-business-and-finance.md) | 16 |
| 10 | [China Economic Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/china-economic-review.md) | 15 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Zhongnan University of Economics and Law](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhongnan-university-of-economics-and-law.md) | 26 |
| 2 | [Central University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 20 |
| 3 | [Xiamen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xiamen-university.md) | 19 |
| 4 | [Nanjing University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanjing-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 17 |
| 5 | [Southwestern University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southwestern-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 17 |
| 6 | [Shandong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/shandong-university.md) | 16 |
| 7 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 14 |
| 8 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 14 |
| 9 | [Capital University of Economics and Business](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/capital-university-of-economics-and-business.md) | 13 |
| 10 | [Jinan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/jinan-university.md) | 13 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 503 |
| 2 | United States | 79 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 43 |
| 4 | Italy | 30 |
| 5 | Spain | 29 |
| 6 | France | 26 |
| 7 | Australia | 23 |
| 8 | India | 19 |
| 9 | Japan | 18 |
| 10 | South Korea | 18 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 167 |
| 2 | [Chinese listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-listed-companies.md) | 124 |
| 3 | [state-owned enterprises](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/state-owned-enterprises.md) | 118 |
| 4 | [financial constraints](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-constraints.md) | 103 |
| 5 | firm productivity | 69 |
| 6 | [digital transformation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-transformation.md) | 68 |
| 7 | [manufacturing companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/manufacturing-companies.md) | 60 |
| 8 | [listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/listed-companies.md) | 59 |
| 9 | [R&D investment](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/r-d-investment.md) | 56 |

## 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 | 584 | 11.4 | [Climate policy uncertainty and firm-level total factor productivity: Evidence from China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2022.106209) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2022-07-27 | Xiaohang Ren, Xiao Zhang, Cheng Yan et al. |
| 3 | 583 | 5.4 | [Temperature effects on productivity and factor reallocation: Evidence from a half million chinese manufacturing plants](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2017.11.001) | [Journal of Environmental Economics and Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-environmental-economics-and-management.md) | 2017-11-08 | Peng Zhang, Olivier Deschênes, Kyle C. Meng et al. |
| 4 | 569 | 4.8 | [Identifying FDI spillovers](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2017.01.006) | [Journal of International Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-economics.md) | 2017-01-20 | Yi Lu, Zhigang Tao, Lianming Zhu |
| 5 | 561 | 13.1 | [Does digital transformation improve the firm’s performance? From the perspective of digitalization paradox and managerial myopia](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113868) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2023-04-07 | Xiaochuan Guo, Mengmeng Li, Yanlin Wang et al. |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Absorptive capacity and who gains from AI](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/absorptive-capacity-and-ai.md)

## Cite this page

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

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