Financial Development and Shadow Economy: A Bibliometric Analysis Using the Scopus Database (1985–2021)

The rising demand for reducing the shadow economy (SE) through financial development (FD) has stimulated researchers worldwide. However, various issues that could affect the FD and SE nexus must be highlighted. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the topic of interest related to this area and to expand the engaging network for advanced research by integrated efforts. The main goal of this bibliometric analysis is to assess the global research trends in the FD and SE literature based on publication outputs, co-occurrences of author keywords, and co-authorships between authors and affiliated nations. The study retrieved 386 research articles from the Scopus database and employed VOSviewer software for results visualization. The study results have shown that until 1998, the FD-SE literature has increased very slowly, while from 2008, the research publications have increased largely. The United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) are the most contributing countries, while the University of Houston-Victoria of US and the University of Manchester of UK are the leading universities in most productive institutions. Moreover, fintech, institutional change, market-based financial system, credit cycle, bankable adults, and non-bank financial institutions are the recent variables that are used in SE literature.