Bibliometric Analysis of Game Theory on Energy and Natural Resource

Abstract

This paper uses CiteSpace software to conduct a bibliometric analysis of research literature under the topic of game theory which specifically focuses on energy and natural resources in the Web of Science Core Collection. The results show that: since 1990, the number of documents covering the topics of “energy” and “game theory”, and “natural resources” and “game theory” has continued to grow steadily, and entered an explosive growth stage after 2017. In terms of disciplinary classification of published papers, Energy & Fuels has the highest frequency, 311 with a significant centrality, 0.22. In terms of journal publications, Applied Energy is the most cited journal whose frequency is 311 and centrality is 0.01. In terms of country, China has the highest number of published papers, and the United States with the highest overall centrality of papers. North China Electric Power University published 31 papers, the largest number of documents from one institution. In terms of author productivity, Puyan Nie has been the most productive author since 2016. The co-citation cluster analysis on the literature topics shows that the game theory of energy and natural resources have roughly gone through four stages: (1) From 1990 to 2009, this is the embryonic stage with no more than 15 new papers per year; (2) From 2010 to 2014, this stage had microgrid as its mainstream research topic, and other topic clusters officially emerged; (3) From 2015 to 2017, the main research topics became the integrated energy system, subsidy mechanism and household energy management, with a hot topic on the evolutionary game process between government and enterprises; (4) From 2018 to 2021, this stage continued to focus on the previous topics, and the research goes much deeper, resulting in more models and new green technologies. Finally, the keyword analysis concludes with nine themes of concern in this research field, and has come to a comprehensive summary of the mainstream research methods in the field of game theory of energy and natural resources.