RePEc
The free, open economics research database. Like arXiv for economics, with 4.6M+ working papers and articles.
OVERVIEW
What is RePEc?
RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) is a free, collaborative database for economics research, containing over 4.6 million working papers, journal articles, books, and software components. Operated by volunteers and hosted at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, it aggregates economics content from publishers, central banks, universities, and research institutions worldwide. Its IDEAS interface provides citation analysis through the CitEc service, plus author and institution rankings based on bibliometric data. As one of the largest free economics resources, it is widely used by economists, policy researchers, and graduate students for working paper discovery and citation tracking.
KEY FEATURES
What RePEc does well
Free & Open
Completely free access to 4.6M+ economics working papers and articles.
Economics Focus
The largest open repository dedicated entirely to economics research.
Working Papers
Strong coverage of pre-publication working papers from NBER, CEPR, IMF, and others.
CitEc Citation Analysis
Free citation tracking and impact metrics for economics papers.
IDEAS Rankings
Author, institution, and journal rankings based on bibliometric data.
Open API
Free public API for searching and harvesting metadata.
Subjects Covered
Media included
Document and content types you can find in RePEc.
- Journal articles
- Books / book chapters
- Reports / white papers
TOP TOOL COMPARISONS
RePEc Alternatives
| Tool | Coverage | Subjects Covered | Open Access / Pricing | Citation Features | One-line Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RePEc | 4,600,000 | Business & Economics | Yes · Free | CitEc citation analysis, IDEAS rankings | The free, open economics research database. Like arXiv for economics, with 4.6M+ working papers and articles. |
 EconLit | 1,800,000 | Business & Economics | No · Paid | JEL classification, cited reference search via host platforms | The American Economic Association's authoritative bibliographic database for economics research. |
 SSRN | 1,400,000 | Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities, Business & Economics... | Yes · Free | Download counts, abstract views (alternative metrics) | Elsevier's free preprint repository for social sciences, economics, and law. Like arXiv for the social sciences. |
 Google Scholar | 389,000,000 | Multidisciplinary | Yes · Free | Cited by counts, h-index, i10-index, related articles | Fastest free starting point for any topic. Great for discovery, weak for systematic literature searches. |
 OpenAlex | 250,000,000 | Multidisciplinary | Yes · Free | Citation network with full API access | The open alternative to Scopus and Web of Science. Free, comprehensive, and great for analytics. |
 Semantic Scholar | 200,000,000 | Multidisciplinary | Yes · Free | Influential citations, citation graph, TLDR context | Free AI-powered discovery tool. Excellent for finding influential papers and TLDR summaries. |
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