Research on the Current Situation and Development Path Optimization of a Unified National Market Based on Bibliometrics

Abstract

On April 10, 2022, the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Unified National Market," which attracted widespread attention and discussion from all walks of life in society. A large number of research outcomes emerged accordingly. However, information overload also led to a lack of in-depth understanding and broad consensus among the public regarding the policy contents. Therefore, to provide a reference for various sectors of society, we need to conduct a systematic and comprehensive bibliometric analysis of this field. This paper utilized bibliometric analysis on 1,140 literature pieces collected in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database. Multiple dimensions were analyzed, including the annual publication output, author collaboration patterns, institutional distribution, keywords, etc. The results showed that the research on the national unified market has progressed from "summarizing experiences from foreign unified markets" to "constructing China's national unified market." Most studies focused on exploring theoretical connotations and horizons (i.e., theoretical discussions) as well as the application of concrete measures (i.e., policy implementation). Quantitatively, with further strengthening of theoretical foundations and improving policy execution, more studies in this field will emerge in an exponential growth trend. This study systematically reviewed the development process of the national unified market and summarized literature characteristics from perspectives such as current research status, hotspots, and evolving trends. It enriched and improved bibliometric research in this domain, providing quantifiable references and insights for follow-up scholars to further advance theoretical developments and practical applications.

Received: 25 September 2023 | Revised: 15 January 2024 | Accepted: 29 January 2024

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Author Contribution Statement

Xin Feng: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing - original draft, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Yinuo Xu: Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization. Xu Wang: Conceptualization, Validation, Resources, Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition.