The potential of alternative investments as an asset class: a thematic and bibliometric review

Hardeep Singh Mundi and Deepak Kumar

Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 119-141

Abstract: Purpose - This paper aims to review, systematize and integrate existing research on alternative investments. This study conducts performance analysis comprising production timeline, country-wise contributions, analysis of sources, affiliations, the geography of authors and citations of studies on alternative investments. Design/methodology/approach - This study adopts a thematic and bibliometric analysis methodology on 570 papers identified from mainstream literature on alternative investments. This study provides an analysis of science mapping, including co-citation analysis, bibliometric coupling, word analysis and trending topics on alternative investments. In addition, the study presents thematic analysis by classifying existing studies into nine themes. Findings - Alternative investments provide diversification benefits and play a critical role in portfolio construction, and the research on alternative investments has gained momentum in recent times. This study finds that hedge funds, private equity, artwork, collectibles, commodities, fine wine and venture capital have remained prominent themes in the field. Investments in cryptocurrencies are an emerging area in the research on alternative investments. Research limitations/implications - This study limits itself to the papers published in the area of finance and economics listed on the Scopus database. Originality/value - This study provides quantitative bibliometric analysis and thematic analysis of the extant literature on alternative investments and identifies the areas that could be developed to advance research on alternative investments.

Keywords: Thematic analysis; Bibliometric analysis; Literature review; Performance analysis; Science mapping; Alternative investments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:qrfmpp:qrfm-11-2021-0182

DOI: 10.1108/QRFM-11-2021-0182

Access Statistics for this article

Qualitative Research in Financial Markets is currently edited by Prof Bruce Burton

More articles in Qualitative Research in Financial Markets from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().