Research Guides: *Economics: Getting Started

Researching a topic in Economics

Research is hard! There are no clear rules for finding the perfect research topic.

A good topic is one that is interesting (both to you and the professor), original, and feasible. The more novel the research, often the harder it is to find good data.

So, how to find a topic?

Read but don’t read too much (look at abstracts of Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, or NBER National Bureau of Economic Research working papers, etc.)
Read survey articles in your research field (Journal of Economic Literature, Handbooks of Economics, Annual Reviews database)
Read old journals
Read bad journals
Read journals in other social sciences
Read the newspaper
Talk to students and your professor
Talk to non-economists about issues that interest you as an economist
Read codebooks (data codebooks written for researching a dataset)
For empirical work: you come across a good instrument or Search Sage Research Methods Online

Top Resources For Getting Started

EconLit This link opens in a new window
Indexes and provides citations and abstracts from over 600 major journals as well as articles in collective volumes (essays, proceedings, etc.), books, book reviews, dissertations, and working papers licensed from the Cambridge University Press Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics. Coverage includes urban, rural and regional economics, public finance, international economics, banking, labor economics, country studies, economic history, demography, law & economics, industry studies, government regulations, business, economic development, cultural economics, agricultural and natural resources economics, and health, education and welfare economics. Most records since 1987 include an abstract. EconLit uses the Journal of Economic Literature Classification system as Subject Descriptors.
Abbreviation: econlit
Vendor: EBSCO
Coverage: 1886-Current
Subjects: Economics, Urban and Regional Planning
Type: Indexes / Catalogs

American Economic Association Web
Provides access to AEA journals including Journal of Economic Literature (JEL).

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A database of the back issues of core journals in the humanities, social sciences and sciences. The gap between the most recently published issue of any journal and the date of the most recent issue available in JSTOR is from 2 to 5 years.
Tutorials:
How to search (04:20)
Primary Source Collection: 19th-Century British Pamphlets (00:51)

Abbreviation: jstor
Vendor: JSTOR
Coverage: 1665-present
Subjects: Arts Administration, Art History, *General / Multi-Subject
Type: E-Book Collections, E-Journal Collections

FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data
214,000 U.S. and international economic time series on banking, consumer prices, employment, exchange rates, GDP, interest rates, population, producer prices, trade, foreign investment and more from 67 sources. Download data into Excel and text formats. View charts of data series.

Sage Data This link opens in a new window
Explore a curated collection of United States statistics in Sage Data. With this dynamic tool, you can scan and search the contents of billions of datasets, compare and contrast variables of interest, and create customized views in tables, maps, rankings, and charts. Views also include descriptive summaries of the datasets and data sources. Datasets cover a wide range of subjects – including business, finance, banking, economics, sociology, political science, demography, agriculture, education, international studies, criminal justice, housing and construction, labor and employment, energy resources and industries, and more. Sources include public, private/commercial, and nongovernmental organizations.
Subjects: Statistics and Data, Business, Finance, Economics, Sociology, Political Science, International Studies, International Relations, Demography, Agriculture, Education, Criminal Justice, Housing and Construction, Labor and Employment, Energy Resources and Industries, Climate and Weather.

Abbreviation: dpf
Vendor: SAGE Publishing
Subjects: Communication, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Demography and Population Studies, Finance, Food, Geography, International Affairs, Law, Political Science, Public Health, Public Safety and Security, Social Work, Statistics, Urban and Regional Planning
Type: Citation Management, Datasets / Statistics, Directories, Government Publications, Historical / Primary Sources, Maps