Jump to navigation
Other resources
Software
- Natural Resource Database Software (NRDB), by Richard Alexander
- Census and Survey Processing System (CSPro), by the US Census Bureau
- GAMS Software
Researchers with ongoing projects funded by PEP’s MPIA program should contact
info@pep-net.org for information on obtaining the PEP licence for GAMS at a subsidised rate.
- GAMS Mailing list
To exchange information about GAMS
Literature
Sites with free downloadable papers
- SSRN: The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a publicly accessible site that gathers academic discussion papers and forthcoming publications (30,000 abstracts and 15,000 downloadable papers) from a huge number of first-rate economics departments and research centres (NEBR, CEPR, IZA, etc.). This is a great site to get the very latest research papers. As they are extremely recent, their bibliographies are excellent starting points for a literature survey. The search facility is straightforward. You can also subscribe to receive email updates on specific subject areas but there may be a fee for this.
- World bank eLibrary: The eLibrary houses nearly 8,000 books, reports, journals, and working papers, and also offers a number of useful research tools and features such as extensive browsing options (content type, topic, key word, series, and other metadata), search within search result; chapter-level abstracts and individual chapter download.
- REPEC: This sites groups together a number of search tools, including IDEAS, which includes roughly 130,000 articles and working papers, many of which can be downloaded, plus many software programs and add-ons. The site also includes WOPEC, which contains 36,000 downloadable papers.
- ELDIS: This site contains a search facility for obtaining documents, web sites and assorted information on development issues.
- NBER: The NBER publishes a huge working paper series (close to 9000 papers) in all fields of economics. Access is free for most developing countries upon written (email) request.
- List of other sources of free downloadable papers via Citationsy
Sites with downloadable articles for subscribers
- JSTOR: This site allows subscribers to download articles from 13 top economic journals (AER; Econometrica; JEL; JEP; Journal of Industrial Economics; Journal of Money, Credit and Banking; Journal of Political Economy; QJE; Review of Economic Studies; Review of Economics and Statistics) with a three- to five-year lag depending on the journal (i.e. you can download all publications before 1997 from the Review of Economics Studies).
- PROQUEST: This site provides subscribers access to summaries of articles from over 8000 publications, many of which can be downloaded.
Sites with free literature search tools
- Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.
- Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network. It enables you to search academic readings, to share them with your fellow researchers and to create automatic bibliographies for your research papers. More information about Mendeley can be found in this video demo and guide.
Sites with literature search tools for subscribers
- ECONLIT: This is an excellent search tool for finding economics papers that covers almost all economics journals.
- Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI): This is also an excellent search tool for finding economics papers covering most economic journals. It has the added advantage of allowing searches by citations so that starting from a classic (oft-cited) paper, you can trace research forward to see who has done more recent research on the issue.
Data sources
- UNICEF: Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS)
- IFPRI datasets: Household- and Community-level Surveys / Social Accounting Matrices
- SEDLAC - Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean
- Ethnicity and the Millennium Development Goals
- The International Household Survey Network (IHSN) has established a web-based Central Survey and Census Catalog, which provides users with access to selected survey and census metadata, documentation and datasets. Access to underlying electronic files is enforced and controlled according to each official depositor’s policy.
- The World Bank has developed DataBank, an analysis and visualisation tool that contains collections of time series data on a variety of topics. You can create your own queries; generate tables, charts, and maps; and easily save, embed, and share them.
The World Bank also offers a Microdata library, a collection of datasets from the World Bank and other international, regional and national organizations.
- The Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) web site lists all LSMS surveys conducted so far and gives information on how to obtain the data. LSMS surveys collect household data that can be used to assess household welfare, understand household behavior, and evaluate the effects of various government policies on living conditions. Data on many dimensions of household well-being are generally collected (consumption, income, savings, employment, health, education, fertility, nutrition, housing and migration).
- Demographic and Health Surveys (DHSs) are often used to look at health and education indicators. You can find information on how to access the datasets on the DHS web site.
- Household Expenditure and Income Data for Transitional Economies (HEIDE) is a database of household expenditure and income data from recent surveys. It was created by a World Bank research team as part of a project analyzing poverty and social assistance in transition economies.
- OECD Child Well-Being Data Portal
- RHoMIS offers surveys and data about farming households in the rural developing world
Sources of research funding & support
Development research institutions
- African Economic Research Consortium (AERC)
- Bureau for Economic Research and Development (BREAD, Harvard)
- Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE)
- Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales - Universidad Nacional de La Plata (CEDLAS)
- Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC)
- Développement et Insertion Internationale (DIAL)
- Ecomod: International network of modellers
- The ELDIS Gateway to Development Information (ELDIS)
- Global Development Network (GDN)
- Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP)
GTAP's goal is to improve the quality of quantitative analysis of global economic issues within an economy-wide framework
- Impact Evaluation Network (IEN)
- International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
- International Child Development Centre (Innocenti ICDC-Unicef)
- International Poverty Centre (IPC)
- Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI)
- Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN)
- Poverty Reduction, Equity and Growth Network (PEGNet)
- PEP-GTAP South Asian Network of Economic Modelers (SANEM)
- World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER)
Websites for economists