Bibliometric Analysis of Carbon Finance and Carbon Markets: Research Methods and Data Sources

1 Research Methods and Data Sources

1.1 Research Methods The early discussions on bibliometrics started in the 1950s, and its methods involve the application of quantitative techniques to bibliometric data (Pritchard 1969; Broadus 1987; Wallin 2005; Donthu et al. 2021). Currently, bibliometrics has been widely applied across various disciplines (Ekundayo and Okoh 2018; Wang et al. 2018b). Bibliometric methods serve two main purposes: performance analysis and scientific mapping (Cobo et al. 2011). Performance analysis aims to evaluate the research and publishing performance of individuals and institutions, while scientific mapping aims to reveal the structure and dynamics of scientific fields (Zupic and Cater 2015). Performance analysis can be used to examine contributions to specific fields, such as the performance of authors, institutions, countries, and journals. Scientific mapping can examine the relationships between components of research and can utilize techniques such as co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-word analysis, and co-authorship analysis.

Commonly used software for bibliometric analysis includes R studio, Vosviewer, Citespace, Gephi, BibExcel, and Histcite (Ampah et al. 2021). However, due to the limitations of Histcite in understanding Scopus data, it cannot be used in this study (Fahimnia et al. 2015). BibExcel operates in a complex operational environment, requiring expertise and experience for basic analysis (Ampah et al. 2021). Additionally, Citespace is used to convert Scopus data into WoS format for better data integration and elimination of data duplication (Ye et al. 2020). Therefore, this study utilizes Citespace and Vosviewer for bibliometric analysis in the field of carbon finance and carbon markets.

1.2 Data Sources This study utilizes the Web of Science and Scopus databases, which are widely used citation indexes for bibliometrics and systematic literature evaluation. Considering the technical difficulties in merging different databases, researchers often choose to use only one database. A study by Gavel and Iselid (2008) confirmed that there is only a 50% overlap between the Scopus and WoS databases. Thus, we use both databases to minimize the exclusion of high-quality relevant articles.

We searched the Web of Science Core Collection's SSCI and SCI-E and the Scopus database using the search terms 'carbon finan*,' 'carbon market*,' 'carbon trad*,' 'carbon pric*,' 'carbon asset*,' and 'carbon tax*' as title keywords, specifically focusing on carbon finance and carbon market. The search results were imported into Citespace for merging, and duplicate results were removed. A total of 5689 articles were obtained. The results were then imported into Vosviewer for further analysis. The specific methods and techniques are illustrated in Figure 1.