Understanding Commodity Investments: Factor Analysis and Bibliometric Findings

Abstract

In recent years, commodity investment research has made significant progress. The crisis arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of understanding commodity markets and rationalizing distribution chains. The main research topics relating to commodities are in constant flux. The present study conducts a bibliographic analysis based on 920 research papers indexed in Scopus during 1980-May 2023. The focus was set on the economic perspectives of commodities and a knowledge map of the most frequently used research themes revealed remarkable research advancements. This analysis was deepened by factor-based research methods, which allowed us to explore the relationships between the most used keywords and implicitly identify the themes of increasing interest in commodity investments. The results show that commodity markets research is closely linked to cost-economic research, environmental impact research, and human involvement in the management of distribution chains.

Keywords

• commodity investment
• bibliometric analysis
• factor analysis
• knowledge mapping