Skip to Main Content

Economic Studies: Databases

Spotlight

Widening the Range of Our Digital Resources: Extending our Elgar Online Collection
 
We have extended our Elgar Online collection to include over 900 ebooks, handbooks and reference works spanning various disciplines including business, economics, education, geography, law, planning, politics, sociology and social policy.
 
Staff and students can access a further 400 titles centred on themes of social responsibility. These encompass a wide range of subjects, including sustainable development goals, human rights, urban and regional studies, responsible business practices, environmental economics, climate change, and social policy.
 
Our full ElgarOnline collection provides an invaluable resource for teaching and research across the social sciences whilst supporting  interdisciplinary research groups, such as Manchester Urban InstitutePolicy@Manchester and Sustainable Futures, and aligning with the University's commitment to Social Responsibility.

Making of the Modern World

In collaboration with academics from the Faculty of Humanities, the Library has arranged for electronic access to the complete Making of The Modern World database, a rich collection of digitised primary source material centring on the dynamics of Western trade and wealth from the last half of the fifteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. Through the lens of industries such as coal, iron, steel, cotton, railways and banking and financial systems, areas as diverse as the rise of the modern labour movement, the evolving status of slavery, the condition and making of the working class, colonization, the Atlantic world, Latin American/Caribbean studies, social history, gender, and the economic theories that championed and challenged capitalism in the nineteenth century can be re-examined. Sourced from a variety of major historical library collections – including those of Senate House, Goldsmiths’, Yale, Columbia, and Harvard’s Kress Library – much of this material is rare and often unique. Whilst topics can be conveniently and readily traced across the database as a whole, MOMW is also grouped into 4 themed collections.

  • The Making of the Modern World, Part I: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection, 1450–1850
  • The Making of the Modern World, Part II: 1851–1914 
  • The Making of the Modern World, Part III: 1890–1945 
  • The Making of the Modern World, Part IV: 1900-1890 

What is a database?

Databases provide access to high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, dissertations and other sources.

These databases have been especially chosen for this subject area.

When carrying out your research for a piece of work, you will need to search more than one database to find all of the journal articles relevant to your topic, as each database covers different journals.

Key databases - Economics

Most databases provide information about journal articles and other publications such as reviews, conference papers and book chapters. To perform a comprehensive search, it may be necessary to use a number of databases.

General databases

General journals databases - Social Sciences

In addition try wider social sciences databases which cover journals across a breadth of subject areas including various economic disciplines.

What is grey literature?

Grey literature refers to research that is either unpublished or has been published in non-commercial form. The term includes the following types of information:

  • government reports, policy statements and issued papers.
  • conference proceedings.
  • pre-prints and post-prints of articles.
  • theses and dissertations.
  • research reports.
  • geological and geophysical surveys.
  • maps.
  • newsletters and bulletins.
  • fact sheets.

British Library

The British Library reports, Conferences and Theses can be searched for through the British Library Integrated Catalogue.

Use these p tags if you need multiple paragraphs

Conference Proceedings Citation Index

The Conference Proceedings Citation Index Literature via Web of Science is taken from the most significant conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions worldwide. Available in two editions: Sciences & Technology and Social Science Literature from the most significant conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions worldwide. Available in two editions: Sciences & Technology and Social Science.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides a quick way to search for scholarly literature across disciplines and sources. You can find articles, theses, books, abstracts and grey literature from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other sources.

GreyNet: Grey Literature

Grey Net provides information about grey literature. GreySource Index provides a list of web-based grey literature resources.

MIAR

MIAR is a matrix of data from more than 100 international indexing and abstracting databases (citation, multidisciplinary or specialised databases) and journal repertoires, which is developed with the purpose of providing useful information for the identification of scientific journals and the analysis of their diffusion. The system works through the elaboration of a correspondence matrix between the journals, identified by their ISSN, and the databases and directories that index or include them.

MIAR has more than 48,000 journal records, but a search in MIAR using a valid ISSN number will return information on the diffusion of any journal in the world at the sources analysed by MIAR, whether or not it has its own record in MIAR.

MIAR 2023 live. Information Matrix for the Analysis of Journals.

OpenGrey

OpenGrey is a multidisciplinary European resource which provides open access to 700,000 bibliographical references of grey literature produced in Europe. It covers science, technology, biomedical science, economics, social science and humanities.
Examples of grey literature include technical or research reports, doctoral dissertations, conference papers and official publications.

Science Gov

Science.gov searches over 55 databases and over 2100 selected websites from 15 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results. Science.gov is governed by the interagency Science.gov Alliance.

Social Science Research Network

Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences.

Scopus

Scopus is a user-friendly database covering some 12,000 journals from all aspects of science, technology and medicine, with some quite sophisticated features.

My Learning Essentials

My Learning Essentials logo image

Getting started with subject databases

This resource explores some of the key features of subject databases, demonstrating that while they can initially appear daunting and complicated, they can be as easy to use as any online shopping site

View all workshops and online resources in this area on the
My Learning Essentials webpages.

Research papers - Economics

The following are freely available respositories providing access to research papers contributed to by economists around the world.

Economic and financial datasets/analysis

The library subscribes to a wide range of international financial datasets providing macro/micro economic data. For further details of other databases providing company/market information see the Business and Management Subject Guide.

Newspaper databases

The library provides comprehensive access to a vast archive of British and overseas newspapers, including electronic access to many current publications. Newspapers are an excellent primary source research tool, not only providing reports about events and issues but also editorials and letters that can be extremely useful for deeper understanding. Access the Newspaper guide for further information.

The latest acquisition to our newspaper databases. Users can study the progression of issues over time by browsing issues extending from the newspaper’s first publication in May 1827 to effectively the present day (within 1 week), including articles, photos, advertisements, classified ads, obituaries, cartoons, and more. Searching facilitated by user-friendly support and indexing tools, with hit-term highlighting, searchable PDFs, and image downloads in PDF format.

Creative Commons Licence This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence.