Twenty-nine years of the Journal of International Review of Economics and Finance: A scientometric overview (1992–2020)

This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive retrospective analysis of the International Review of Economics and Finance (IREF). Using the bibliometric approach, the study analyses the journal's performance, citation structure, network connection, and mapping analysis through which a conceptual structure is developed. The Scopus database is used to retrieve data and a wide range of bibliometric tools are utilized for analysis such as RStudio “Biblioshiny” package, VOSviewer, and Microsoft Excel. Analysing IREF performance over the last twenty-nine-years (1992–2020), the findings reveal that the most prolific authors have USA and China affiliations; the journal's authors derive their information and build on research from sources that are ranked (Q1, A*, 4, 4* and SSCI), which indicates high connectedness between IREF content and published work in top sources in economics and finance. Moreover, the citation of the journal is surging in an unprecedented way during the last five years. Thus, IREF has positioned itself as one of the most influential sources, especially in finance. Its citation performance is close to the Journal of Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Corporate Finance, while being above many esteemed finance journals, such as Review of Finance, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, and Journal of Empirical Finance. The most prominent themes discussed in the journal are capital structure, economic growth, corporate governance, monetary policy, foreign direct investment, exchange rates, and emerging markets. This article presents the trending topics in IREF over the last three decades, which is helpful for the journal's board of editors in drawing a successful strategy based on a bibliometric study of the economics and finance field, where it is likely to garner interest.