---
title: "Urban-rural differences research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “urban-rural differences” appeared in 1,010 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (439), health economics and policy (330) and finance (69)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/urban-rural-differences
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/urban-rural-differences.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 “urban-rural differences” appeared in 1,010 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (439), health economics and policy (330) and finance (69). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “urban-rural differences”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/7.md)

Research on “urban-rural differences” 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 “urban-rural differences” appeared in 1,010 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (439), health economics and policy (330) and finance (69).
- 143 of them were published in 2025, against 75 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Peking University (14), World Bank (11) and Renmin University of China (8).
- The journals publishing most of them were Social Science & Medicine (42), International Journal for Equity in Health (35) and Finance research letters (29).
- The most-cited of them is “The Impact of Social Awareness and Lifestyles on Household Carbon Emissions in China” (Ecological Economics, 2019), with 283 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) | 31 | 22 | 33 | 47 | 28 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 67 | 67 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 28 | 25 | 25 | 30 | 38 | 37 | 40 | 34 | 31 | 42 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 22 | 19 | 11 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 3 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 11 | 6 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 1 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 10 | 5 | 3 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 7 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 75 | 61 | 66 | 96 | 89 | 103 | 111 | 125 | 143 | 141 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Social Science & Medicine](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/social-science-medicine.md) | 42 |
| 2 | [International Journal for Equity in Health](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-for-equity-in-health.md) | 35 |
| 3 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 29 |
| 4 | [SSM - Population Health](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ssm-population-health.md) | 19 |
| 5 | [International Journal of Educational Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-development.md) | 14 |
| 6 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 13 |
| 7 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 13 |
| 8 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 12 |
| 9 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Transport Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transport-policy.md) | 12 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 14 |
| 2 | [World Bank](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/world-bank.md) | 11 |
| 3 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 8 |
| 4 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 8 |
| 5 | [Xiamen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xiamen-university.md) | 8 |
| 6 | [Central University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [Columbia University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/columbia-university.md) | 7 |
| 8 | [Shandong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/shandong-university.md) | 7 |
| 9 | [Beijing Normal University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-normal-university.md) | 6 |
| 10 | [Harvard University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/harvard-university.md) | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 172 |
| 2 | United States | 114 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 53 |
| 4 | India | 39 |
| 5 | Australia | 29 |
| 6 | Germany | 27 |
| 7 | Canada | 20 |
| 8 | Japan | 15 |
| 9 | Spain | 14 |
| 10 | South Africa | 13 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 80 |
| 2 | [gender differences](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/gender-differences.md) | 53 |
| 3 | [older adults](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/older-adults.md) | 39 |
| 4 | [educational attainment](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/educational-attainment.md) | 31 |
| 5 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 27 |
| 6 | [India](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/india.md) | 27 |
| 7 | [financial inclusion](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-inclusion.md) | 23 |
| 8 | [health care access](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/health-care-access.md) | 23 |
| 9 | [health disparities](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/health-disparities.md) | 23 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 283 | 3.1 | [The Impact of Social Awareness and Lifestyles on Household Carbon Emissions in China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.02.020) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2019-03-04 | Jun Li, Dayong Zhang, Bin Su |
| 2 | 271 | 4.1 | [Compensating for academic loss: Online learning and student performance during the COVID-19 pandemic](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101629) | [China Economic Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/china-economic-review.md) | 2021-05-01 | Andrew Eric Clark, Huifu Nong, Hongjia Zhu et al. |
| 3 | 260 | 2.4 | [Development and validation of a questionnaire to assess pedestrian receptivity toward fully autonomous vehicles](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2017.08.029) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2017-09-07 | Shuchisnigdha Deb, Lesley J. Strawderman, Daniel W. Carruth et al. |
| 4 | 211 | 3.2 | [How does population aging affect household carbon emissions? Evidence from Chinese urban and rural areas](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105356) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2021-06-02 | Jianshuang Fan, Lin Cong Zhou, Yan Zhang et al. |
| 5 | 205 | 2.9 | [Internet access and poverty reduction: Evidence from rural and urban Mexico](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2020.102076) | [Telecommunications Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/telecommunications-policy.md) | 2020-12-16 | Jorge Mora‐Rivera, Fernando García‐Mora |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “urban-rural differences”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/urban-rural-differences

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-urban-rural-differences,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “urban-rural differences”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/urban-rural-differences}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  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/).