Training Economics: Literature

1. Google Scholar (with UBUlink), for an orientation in the literature and to search for citations.  LibGuide Google Scholar

2. Scopus (with UBUlink), to search for journal articles and citations to articles.  LibGuide Scopus (in English) ; LibGuide Scopus (in Dutch)

3. WorldCat,  for books and e-books that are available in the Utrecht University Library LibGuide WorldCat (in English); LibGuide WorldCat (in Dutch).

4. Econlit (with UBUlink), contains citations and selected abstracts from international literature on the subject of economics from 1886 onwards. Items include economic theory and history, monetary theory, financial institutions and country studies.[Find out more about Econlit].

5. RePEc:IDEAS, for working papers. [Find out more about RePEc:IDEAS]

6. Find-eR. With Find-eR you can search in the printed and electronic collection of the libraries of the European Commission. Contains references to books and journal articles in the field of the European Union.

7. Overton. A search engine that helps to find millions of policy documents from all countries and in all languages by subject, title, organization and more. The full texts are also searchable. Overton also allows users to see, track and analyze mentions of publications and other research output in policy documents.[Find out more] 

8. Business Source Premier. A bibliographical and full-text database on business, management & finance (tutorials)

9. NexisUni: Newspapers. Find out more on Nexis Uni explained

10. Politico Pro Europe. Provides in-depth reporting ( reports, data, analyses, tools) on (European) policy about the following themes: Agriculture & food, Brexit, competition & industrial strategy, Cybersecurity & data protection, Energy & climate, EU budget, Financial services, Healthcare, Mobility, Sustainability, Technology, Trade.

11. Electronic journals UU, for full text articles in electronic journals to which the Utrecht University is subscribed. [Find out more about Electronic Journals UU]

 
You can find more sources in the list of search engines for Economics.

For a quick and good orientation on your subject you can consult the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics.
Search by keywords or Browse by Topic. The Topics are based on the JEL classification.

What is Econlit?

EconLit covers more than 125 years of economics literature from around the world (mainly English-language). It provides an authoritative reference to journal articles, books, book reviews, collective volume articles, working papers, and dissertations--all expertly indexed and classified using subject terms from the well-known JEL Classification System. This database is updated online weekly.

EconLit allows you to keep up with developments in economics by providing one convenient place to search across scholarly publications dealing with a broad range of economics issues. For a complete list of the over 1,300 peer-reviewed journals covered in EconLit, see https://www.aeaweb.org/econlit/journal_list.php.

See also:
Econlit search hints from the American Economic Association
Video Tutorial Econlit
Econlit database guide

Searching Econlit

Econlit opens by displaying a main search page. It is divided into two parts:
- a default Search History window and
- a default query window (= Search; several tabs).

The screen Search offers many possibilities, most are self-evident.
Search tip: search in small steps first and then combine your searches on the Search History tab. To do so, select the boxes of results sets you want to combine, then choose a Boolean operator from the search history.

The search results are displayed below the query window.

• On the left, the Search Information allows you to sort and filter the search results in various ways. The Results Tools can be expanded and closed.
• At the top of the Results screen you will find hyperlinks to save or email or to export them, for instance to Refworks.
• On the Results screen you will find hyperlinks to:
  - an Abstract,
  - the Complete Reference,
  - and to the . If you click on this button you will see all possibilities to obtain the article or book.
   

Directly to: EconLit

'Electronic Journals' is a list of  all full-text journals to which the Utrecht University Library has a subscription can be found.

For the field of Economics there are around 2700 mainly English-language electronic journals available.

Searching E-journals

Search by journal title (words from title)
or: 
Browse by title. Click on the journal title to access the e-journal. Click on the UBU link to see which volumes and years are available and other options.

Directly to: Electronic journals

What is RePEc:IDEAS?

IDEAS is the largest bibliographic database dedicated to Economics and available freely on the Internet. Based on RePEc, it indexes over 3,100,000 items of research (working papers, journal articles, software components, books, book chapters), including over 2,900,000 that can be downloaded in full text.
For many publications references and citations of those publications are listed as well. There are also rankings of highly cited authors and publications.

Searching RePEc:IDEAS

1. Search
With IDEAS you can search the bibliographical records, not the full texts themselves. Choose the "Advanced search" page. See the "Tips" on the search screen.

2. Browse JEL-codes
In RePEc many publications are coded according to the "Journal of Economic Literature" (JEL)classification. With IDEAS you can browse through the JEL classification to find literature by subject. How? At "Browse Econ Literature" click on: "JEL Classification" and subsequently on the JEL-code.

3. Related Research
Once you have found interesting publications, use the keywords and JEL-codes mentioned under "Related works & more" to find more publications on the same subject. 

4. Citations
Also take a look at the references and citations listed in the results screen. These cited or citing documents could be interesting too.

Directly to RePEc:IDEAS

Watch the video tutiorials by Ebsco:

• Ebsco Business Source Premier (introduction; company profiles; articles)
• basic searching and browsing functions of the Business Source databases on the EBSCOhost interface
• advanced searching and browsing functions of the Business Source databases on the EBSCOhost interface.

A short introduction video
At Getting Started you will find several search examples, such as:
      - Search for policy documents that cite or mention your organisation
       - Search for scholarly articles cited in policy  
       - Advanced searches

Many economic publications are classified according to the subject codes of the "Journal of Economic Literature" (JEL). Also several search engines for economic publications classify publications according to these subject codes.

These subject codes can be used to find more publications about the same subject.

For an overview of the classification system and the subject codes see: Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) Classification codes guide.

In your search for scholarly literature you may sometimes find the UBU-link. This link provides information about the availability of digital publications via the University Library.  Sometimes the UBU-link is in the form of a yellow button, but it can also be a text link.

Want to know more about all options to access digital publications? Visit our Online Access page.

If you are working on the same subject over a longer period of time, it is useful to be kept up to date about new results of a search action or new issues of journals you are interested in.

Many search engines offer this option, but almost always you will be asked to create a personal account. The results will be sent to you by email, or in your RSS feed. Usually they pop up when you log in to the system.