Economic or financial substantiation for smart city solutions: a literature study

Abstract

The research is aimed to find the answer for the research question: Do the researchers demonstrate economic or financial substantiation for implementation of smart solutions for different dimensions of smart city? The goal of the research is to determine the publications presenting the economic or financial substantiations for smart solutions for smart city and to determine the type of the provided substantiation. It is very important, since Smart City is becoming our life step by step, though the components of it are introduced without any economic study, estimation and substantiation. This research is done to discover the areas where such substantiations exist, and to estimate the possibility of applying the methods, described in these studies, for smart solutions in smart city. The study considers the academic articles in English included in Scopus database and available online in full text. The primary selection comprised 927 publications for the period 1993-2020, and only 22 of them contained the comprehensive or close to comprehensive economic or financial analysis. This fact demonstrates the lack of economic and financial researches in the sphere of Smart City. The study allows the scholars to use the reviewed publications as providing the economic and financial basis for smart city; it also demonstrates the areas of smart city and smart solutions where specialists in economy can apply their competences.