A Bibliometric Review of Energy Related International Investment Based on an Evolutionary Perspective

Abstract

Energy security could be jointly maintained through the cooperation of different countries or regions. In this circumstance, there has been a large number of energy-related international investment studies. However, the existing academic literature lacks a systematic scientometric analysis of this research topic, so this paper will fill this gap. Using CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and HisCite, this paper analyzes 1014 articles published in the WoS SSCI Collection from January 1998 to March 2022 on the energy-related international investment. This paper comprehensively analyzes this field from four evolutionary dimensions. In the discipline and mainstream journals dimension, the largest change lies in the fact that more than three different disciplines flow into mathematics, while the journal “Environmental Science and Pollution Research” shows a dramatic growth in relevant publications after 2015. Keyword evolution shows a gradual deepening emphasis from attracting energy-related international investment to systematically analyzing the influencing mechanisms of the international investment-energy-environmental quality nexus. Citation clusters identifies two latest clusters, including institutional quality and renewable energy consumption. Citation paths summarize four major evolutionary paths. The overall evolution trend is based on the FDI-energy-environment nexus, and gradually considers the influence mechanism of different factors on this nexus.