Money Laundering - A quantitative analysis of knowledge production and its economics and social influence

Abstract

Money Laundering has been a concern of the major entities in the world. By 2020 it was estimated that 2.7% of the global GDP is money laundered by criminals. This study quantifies the knowledge produced on money laundering subject and which concepts are related to it. The data source used was the Web of Science database available at Web of Science website. The main players and networks around them were set, and the exercise of understanding the money laundering bibliometrics conducted to investigate potential relations between knowledge creation and corruption, terrorism, and financial transparency. It was concluded that Money Laundering turned into a relevant topic in science production since 2015, and the four main players are USA, China, UK, and Australia. Regarding the relation dynamics, it was found a good correlation between science production and number of citations, and the Financial Secrecy Index, meaning that countries with more articles produced, and with more citations are more likely to be less transparent, being the four main players above the trend.