A bibliometric analysis of sustainable finance

We undertake a systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis of sustainable finance instruments. We reviewed 303 articles from 119 journals published from 2007 to 2022 listed in the Web of Science database. Our review provides a state-of-art overview of the current evolution of the sustainable finance literature over time and across academic categories and journals. This research aims to identify the primary research stream and evolutionary nuances. Also, we include studies with the first empirical evidence on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the green and social impact financial market. We demonstrate that until 2013 our database interrogation did not detect sustainable finance-related research. Moreover, 241 articles out of our 303 investigate green bonds. This result underlines the scholars’ interest in analysing this innovative financial tool. However, only one article is related to sustainable bonds.