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Economics

Start with a Topic

Choose a topic that is interesting to you and which will work within your assignment's parameters. Usually your research goal is to locate published scholarship (books and journal articles) to read on your topic.

Remember to evaluate the accuracy of your resources, and think critically about their arguments. When in doubt, check with your Economics instructor.

You may also want to visit Business guide if you are studying or want to study in BBA or BALA programs.

Library Resources and Search Tools for Your Research

To gather more information about your topic, reading a good summary of a your topic in a reference book (i.e., an encyclopedia or a dictionary), is a good start, especially when you are not familiar with the topic.

Once you know the basics on your topic, search for more published scholarship, such as books in the CUNY Catalog or other catalogs, scholarly articles in library databases or E-journals. This is an indispensable step for a research as you need to review published literature to present your own research questions and/or research hypotheses.

In addition, you may also need to find some data sources to examine your research questions and/or hypotheses if you are conducting an empirical research.

The library search tools (i.e., OneSearch, Databases, Journals, etc.) listed on this guide will help you find needed resources (i.e. books, articles, data sources, etc.).

Major Literature Collections

Look for articles in scholarly journals and library databases.

 

A journal article is written by a scholar or an expert, and provides a detailed analysis of a topic. It is written in the specialized language of a scholarly discipline. It documents the resources the writer used by providing bibliographic citations such as footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography so a reader can check or repeat the research the scholar has completed.

A scholarly journal is edited by scholars, and any article published in the journal has usually been approved by the author's peers or by referees (other scholars expert in the subject who serve as editors or readers and critique the article before it is accepted for publication). This is why most scholarly journals are referred to as a Peer-Reviewed or Refereed journals.

More Databases for Economics & Business

Look for News

Reference Works

Major Data Sources

  • FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) - Provides wealth of economic data time series from national, international, public, and private sources.
  • NBER Data - Covers public-use economic, demographic, and enterprise data from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

  • IMF eLibrary - Contains the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) statistical datasets on IMF Data and archived print versions of the statistical publications (International Financial Statistics, Balance of Payments, Direction of Trade and Government Finance Statistics).

  • UN Data - Contains major UN international statistical databases, including demographic, economic, and social data.

  • USA Trade Online - Provides current and cumulative U.S. export and import data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Users need to create a free account to access the reports.

  • World Bank data - Provides social and economic data, time series data, and development-related indicators from the World Bank.