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Scientific data-driven evaluation of academic publications on environmental Kuznets curve

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Abstract

This study aims to provide a detailed overview of environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis using bibliometric analysis for the Web of Science (WOS) database. Our analysis provides an overview of research trends, journals and most influential authors. China has contributed the most scientific publications; followed by the USA, Turkey, and Pakistan. Muhammad Shahbaz, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Environmental Science and Pollution Research are the most productive author, research institute, and research journal in EKC publications. Trend analysis of researchers, academic and country-level, reveal that publications in the environmental Kuznets curve have upward trend; also, cocitation analysis indicates that EKC publications are closely related. “Economic growth and income inequality” (1955) by Simon Kuznets is considered to be the basic literature, and “environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis: A Survey” by Dinda (2004) is the most cited research article in the literature. Keywords and abstracts analysis further reveals that carbon emissions, renewable energy, energy consumption, economic growth, and sustainable development are the hot topics in current literature. We propose that joint research projects between industrial and emerging economies will promote research activities.

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Funding

We acknowledge the financial support by the Ministry of Education–China Mobile Joint Laboratory Grant Number: 2020MHL02005.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Muhammad Farhan Bashir, Benjiang Ma & Luqman Shahzad

  2. School of Economics, Nankai University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

    Muhammad Adnan Bashir

  3. School of Accounting, Hubei University of Economics, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Bilal

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  1. Muhammad Farhan Bashir
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Author contribution is as follows:

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Muhammad Farhan Bashir

Writing—original draft, Software

Benjiang MA

Methodology, project administration

Bilal

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Muhammad Adnan Bashir

Resources, formal analysis

Luqman Shahzad

Data curation

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Correspondence to Muhammad Adnan Bashir.

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Bashir, M.F., Ma, B., Bashir, M.A. et al. Scientific data-driven evaluation of academic publications on environmental Kuznets curve. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 16982–16999 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13110-6

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