Surveying the Literature
“If I have seen further, it is by
standing on the shoulders of
giants.”
Sir Isaac Newton
Surveying the Literature
When you survey the literature on a
subject, you are trying to identify the major
studies that have been published to date.
But more importantly, you are trying to
understand what the studies say and how
they relate to one another. Surveying the
literature is a key component of the
research process.
Surveying the Literature
• Ethridge (1995, 115) observed that before
you can “advance the state of knowledge,”
you need to know what the state of
knowledge is. So when you survey the
literature, you are trying to create your own
sense of what is known and what is not
known about the subject.
Where to Search
Popular publications:
• are addressed to a general
audience;
• are almost always
secondary sources of
information;
• articles in Time magazine
or the Economist
summarizing articles in the
American Economic Review
(AER).
Scholarly Publications:
• are addressed to a
specialized audience,
namely, experts in the field;
• are often primary sources of
information;
• are original publications of
research studies;
• articles in the American
Economic Review (AER).
Examples of Scholarly Journals
• National Journals
– American Economic Review
– Journal of Political Economy
– Quarterly Journal of Economics
– Econometrica
– Review of Economics and Statistics
– Review of Economic Studies
Examples of Scholarly Journals
• Regional Journals
– Economic Inquiry
– Southern Economic Journal
– Eastern Economic Journal
– The Journal of Economics
– Publications of Federal Reserve Banks
Examples of Scholarly Journals
• Specialized Journals
– Journal
– Journal
– Journal
– Journal
of
of
of
of
Urban Economics
Money, Credit and Banking
Industrial Economics
Agricultural Economics
Developing an Effective Search
Strategy
• Browsing means manually examining a
document for useful information or
reference to useful information.
• Keyword Searching uses search engines
on the World Wide Web or on specialized
databases to locate useful information.
AEA/JEL/EconLit Subject Descriptors
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
A – General Economics and Teaching
B – Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology
C – Mathematical and Quantitative Economics
D – Microeconomics
E – Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
F - International Economics
G – Financial Economics
H – Public Economics
I – Health, Education, and Welfare
AEA/JEL/EconLit Subject Descriptors
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
J – Labor and Demographic Economics
K – Law and Economics
L – Industrial Organization
M – Business Administration and Business
N – Economic History
O – Economic Development, Technological Change, and
Growth
P – Economic Systems
Q – Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics
R – Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
Z – Other Special Topics
Expanded AEA Subject Descriptors
• A00 – General
– A1 – General Economics
• A10 – General
• A11 – Role of Economics; Role of Economists
• A12 – Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
• A13 – Relation of Economics to Social Values
• A14 – Sociology of Economics
• A19 - Other
Expanded AEA Subject Descriptors
• A00 – General
– A2 – Teaching of Economics
• A20 – General
• A21 – Pre-College
• A22 – Undergraduate
• A23 – Graduate
• A29 - Other
AEA/JEL/EconLit Subject Descriptors
The complete classification system can be
reviewed at:
http://www.aeaweb.org/journal/elclasjn.html
International Financial Statistics
• At long last, E.I.U. now has access to International Financial Statistics Online, an
online database from the IMF. This serial publication is being paid for jointly by the
library's Econ and Business funds.
More info on IFS Online is available here: http://www.imfstatistics.org/imf/about.asp
<http://www.imfstatistics.org/imf/about.asp>
You can find it linked from the library's subject page for Economics, or search it
directly through this link:
http://proxy.library.eiu.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.imfstatistics.org/
<http://proxy.library.eiu.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.imfstatistics.org/>
Our license is for 1-5 simultaneous users.
Foreign Currency Data
• http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/curre
ncies/fxc.html
Government Data
• http://www.data.gov
Interuniversity Consortium for
Political and Social Research
•
The Department of Sociology and Anthropology has purchased a membership to the
Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). This
database is available for the entire university to use. Given the nature of the data, the
College of Sciences will especially be affected by this, offering both faculty and students a
chance to download vast datasets for their research.
The IP range for the campus has already been established with ICPSR, allowing for users
to establish their own accounts for downloading data. Simply go to the ICPSR website,
browse for data, and establish an account. During the establishment of your account, you
must be on campus so that the IP address is recognized. Once completed, you will be able
to access the data from other locations. The website is
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/access/index.html. There are tutorials available on this
site to help with selection and downloads.
Dr. Darren Hendrickson, Sociology/Anthropology Dept. will be acting as the Official
Representative to the ICPSR. Dr. Hendrickson can be reached at 581-8364 or
dhendrickson@eiu.edu.