UBC Library provides many ways for you to ask questions and get help with economics research. Economics subject librarians are available to help you find relevant sources of information to explore your research questions.
Reach out to us anytime by email or by booking an appointment. Quick questions about access to library resources and basic search strategies can also be supported by AskAway, our live chat service.
Abi Muthukumar, Humanities & Social Science Librarian, Koerner Library, Vancouver Campus
Barbara Sobol, Technology Management Librarian, Okanagan Library, Okanagan Campus
UBC Library provides access to many types of information, data and statistics that can be useful for researching topics in economics and this guide is meant as an introduction to finding relevant sources.
Articles are one of the most commonly used types of information in academic research in economics. Peer-reviewed articles generally report on a specific study, topic or theory of analysis. The EconLit database is the most effective place to search for peer-reviewed articles from economics journals. The EconLit database is created by the American Economics Association and uses a structured set of terms (a thesaurus) to link articles together by topic. This means that you can effectively search using keywords, or browse using structured hyperlinks of common economic terms. This system of organization is also called the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification system and it can be a helpful starting point when constructing a formal literature review. The link below to the EconLit database is the best place to start:
Many economics research questions are also interdisciplinary and it can be valuable to search beyond journals that focus on economics. There are numerous databases (or search engines) that we recommend. In an interdisciplinary database there is often an option to filter by discipline, allowing you to easily review sources of information from different fields of study. You may also find too many results when using keyword searches; in this case, limiting your search to the abstract field (an option in the dropdown menu next to where you type keywords) can be an effective way to improve your search results. The following list of interdisciplinary database are recommended:
Newspaper articles are a common information source in economics as current events can be the spark of a research question, or the focus of analysis. UBC Library provides access to many current and historical newspapers and maintains guide that provides links to access:
We've also included a few links here to frequently requested newspapers with economics content:
Step 1: Download and install the extension: leanlibrary.com/download
Step 2: Select University of British Columbia
Step 3: Start searching! When off-campus, Library Access will let you know when you are on a website that the library has access to.
Step 4: Login with your UBC CWL (campus wide login)