Finance Research and the UN Sustainable Development Goals - An analysis and forward look

Abstract

The relationship between academic finance research and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) has gained increasing attention over recent years. This study conducts a comprehensive analysis of the interplay between the UN SDGs and scholarly output in financial journals from 2010 to 2022. Utilizing a framework that combines fuzzy matching, bibliometric analysis, and topic modelling techniques, the research traces the evolution of finance research and its alignment with the UN SDGs. Our findings indicate that academic finance research is unevenly spread across the SDG’s. Key areas around the natural world, sustainability and climate change are underresearched. The implications of our study are significant for both academic scholars and policymakers, suggesting a need for strategic redirection in research priorities to better support global sustainability initiatives in the future.