Decentralization, governance, and economic growth
A bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23882/emss26333Keywords:
Decentralization, Governance, Economic Growth, Bibliometric AnalysisAbstract
This article presents a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on decentralization, governance, and economic growth. It covers publications indexed in the Scopus database over the period from 2000 to 2025. The study is based on the PRISMA method, which rigorously filters relevant documents, resulting in a final set of 97 English-language documents. The main objective is to quantitatively map the evolution of research in this field and to identify trends in scientific output, researcher collaborations, dominant themes, and the most influential authors. The analysis also highlights the most active institutions, countries, and journals, as well as co-author networks and their positioning in the scientific landscape. The results reveal a clear acceleration in publications starting in 2015, with notable peaks in 2020 and 2023. Researchers such as Dahiya B., Li Y., and Yang X. stand out for their influence and the number of citations of their work. China, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, and the United States rank among the most productive countries, while journals such as Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Advances In 21st Century Human Settlements, and Economies account for a significant share of the publications. The analysis of co-author networks reveals a relatively fragmented structure, yet organized around pivotal nodes that serve as connectors between different groups. Thematically, the literature clusters around four major axes: institutions and governance, fiscal decentralization, regional public policies, and economic growth. A growing interest is observed in the links between local governance, economic performance, and the effectiveness of decentralization reforms. Keyword co-occurrence and thematic evolution analyses help to identify dominant currents and future research directions. This study underscores the increasing importance of decentralization in economic growth strategies. It calls for deeper investigations into the institutional mechanisms linking territorial governance reforms to macroeconomic performance, particularly through the analysis of local fiscal policies and urban dynamics.
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