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EconLit
What EconLit is
EconLit is the American Economic Association’s bibliographic database for economics literature. It contains over 2 million records covering 140 years of publications and is updated weekly. Its collection includes peer-reviewed journal articles, working papers, PhD dissertations, books, book reviews and articles in collective volumes. Searchable record fields can include title, author, affiliation, source, publication details, document type, identifiers, keywords, subject classifications, named people and geographic descriptors. Its subject descriptors follow the Journal of Economic Literature classification system. Institutions can subscribe through EBSCO, ProQuest or Ovid; the data is the same, though interfaces differ. Full-text links depend on library holdings, and EconLit with Full Text is offered only through EBSCO. AEA members can use a courtesy bibliographic service, but it has no full-text links and may be phased out. Institutional pricing is supplied by providers. A free trial request is available through EBSCO, without a stated trial duration.
Who it suits
EconLit suits economics scholars and other researchers who need to search across publications, working papers and dissertations. Institutions can access it through EBSCO, ProQuest or Ovid.
What it does well
- Over 2 million records, updated weekly.
- Coverage spans 140 years of economics literature.
- Search fields include subjects and geographic descriptors.
- Institutional access is available through three providers.
What to know first
- Full-text links depend on library holdings.
- Full Text is available only through EBSCO.
- AEA member access has no full-text links.
- Institutional prices are supplied on request.
Limits
AEA member courtesy access is bibliographic and has no full-text links; the service may be phased out. Collective volume article records lack abstracts, and non-English articles are omitted unless the volume includes an English summary. Full-text links through providers depend on library holdings.
Plans
| Plan | Billed and limits | Price |
|---|---|---|
| EconLit for AEA Members | AEA-member login · bibliographic records only · no full-text links · courtesy service may be discontinued | Free |
| EconLit (institutional subscription) | Pricing supplied by platform providers · Available through EBSCO, ProQuest, or Ovid | On request |
| EconLit with Full Text | Pricing supplied by EBSCO · EBSCO only · Full-text journals alongside EconLit indexing | On request |
| EconLit via ProQuest | Institutional subscription · pricing supplied by ProQuest | On request |
| EconLit via EBSCO | Institutional database subscription · optional EconLit with Full Text available only through EBSCO | On request |
| EconLit via Ovid | Institutional OvidSP subscription · pricing supplied by Wolters Kluwer | On request |
As aeaweb.org lists them, read 15 Oct 2026. The maker's own page has the final word.
Getting started
- Visit the American Economic Association’s EconLit website.
- For institutional access, check availability through EBSCO, ProQuest, or Ovid.
- For courtesy member access, sign in with AEA member credentials.
- For help with a provider’s proprietary search interface, contact your information service provider.
Verdict
EconLit brings broad economics literature coverage and detailed search fields into one bibliographic database. Check provider access and full-text availability with your institution before relying on it for full-text reading.
Questions
What does EconLit cover?
It includes peer-reviewed journal articles, working papers, PhD dissertations, books, book reviews, and collective volume articles. Its records cover literature published over the last 140 years.
How can an institution access EconLit?
Institutional subscriptions are available through EBSCO, ProQuest, and Ovid. They contain the same data through slightly different user interfaces.
Does EconLit include full text?
Providers can link records to full text depending on a library’s holdings. EconLit with Full Text, which provides full-text journals alongside indexing, is available only through EBSCO.
Is EconLit free for AEA members?
The AEA offers courtesy access at no cost to members who sign in with AEA credentials. It is bibliographic access without full-text links, and the service may be phased out.
What does EconLit cost?
Institutional subscription pricing is supplied by platform providers. The AEA does not state a price for the institutional subscription.
How often is the database updated?
EconLit says its database is updated weekly and contains over 2 million records.
Facts from EconLit's own pages
- Classification
- EconLit subject descriptors use the Journal of Economic Literature classification system, with a zero added to make four-digit codes. · aeaweb.org, 8 Oct 2026
- Controlled vocabulary
- The database uses subject descriptors based on the Journal of Economic Literature classification system. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Coverage
- The database includes peer-reviewed journal articles, working papers, PhD dissertations, books, book reviews, and collective volume articles. · aeaweb.org, 8 Oct 2026
- Coverage size
- The AEA says EconLit contains more than 2 million records covering roughly 140 years of economics publishing. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Document type: books
- EconLit indexes books and book reviews. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Document type: collective volumes
- EconLit indexes articles from collective volumes. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Document type: dissertations
- EconLit indexes PhD dissertations. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Document type: JEL reviews
- EconLit includes book reviews from the Journal of Economic Literature. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Document type: journals
- EconLit indexes peer-reviewed journal articles. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Document type: working papers
- EconLit indexes working papers in economics. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- EBSCO record count
- EBSCO describes EconLit as an abstracting and indexing database with 2,000,000 records. · about.ebsco.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Full-text linking
- Libraries can link EconLit records to their subscribed electronic journals and may offer DOI pay-per-view links for unsubscribed articles. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Full-text package
- EconLit with Full Text bundles database records with more than 500 journals and is offered only through EBSCO. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Geographic coverage
- The AEA says the database covers work from leading institutions in 75 countries. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Geographic descriptors
- Articles and working papers can receive country, regional, and economic-group geographic tags. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Intended users
- The AEA describes EconLit as a reference tool for economics scholars, while ProQuest lists researchers, academics, product managers, advertisers, product development specialists, and public policy professionals among those interested in the literature. · aeaweb.org, 8 Oct 2026
- JEL classification adoption
- An independent study says EconLit uses the JEL classification system to classify articles, dissertations, books, book reviews, and working papers. · arxiv.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Journal coverage
- The AEA reports that more than 1,000 journals are indexed, representing nearly one million articles from 74 countries. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Journal selection
- Journals are selected for substantial peer-reviewed economics content, including equivalent economics emphasis in interdisciplinary titles. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: author-name normalization
- The same study reports that EconLit does not standardize author names, which can cause publication rankings to underestimate researchers using variant names. · researchrepository.ucd.ie, 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: institutional access
- The same account reports that a university library did not subscribe to EconLit, forcing the researchers to substitute another database. · maer-net.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Limits
- Collective volume article records do not include abstracts, and non-English articles are omitted unless the volume includes an English summary. · aeaweb.org, 8 Oct 2026
- Maker founded
- The AEA was organized in 1885 and incorporated in 1923. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
- Maker headquarters
- The AEA is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, with a publications office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. · aeaweb.org, 15 Oct 2026
Where EconLit stands on Freedom251
- Academic Research Databases#11 of 35