On National Teacher Day, meet the 2024-25 Kenan Fellows
Research methods economics fall 2012
1. Research Methods in Economics ECO 3132
Linda Hauck
Business Librarian
Linda.Hauck@villanov.edu
2. Literature Review
“A literature review is a Inclusion Determined by
summary of what is
currently known about
some issue or field on the • Subject
basis of research • Geography
evidence, and/or of what
lines of argument there • Time period
are in relation to that • Research
issue or field.” method/design
Hammersley, M. (2004). Literature review. In M. Lewis-
Beck, A. Bryman, & T. Liao (Eds.), Encyclopedia of
social science research methods. (pp. 578-580).
Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi:
10.4135/9781412950589.n503
3. Topic Selection
Sources Orientation
• Personal Interests • Wikipedia and other
• Internships encyclopedias
• Course work • Library Catalog
• The news
4. Research Tools
Essential EconLit with Full Text
Faculty Top PicksGoogle Scholar,
Social Science Research Network,
Social Science Citation Index
Interdisciplinary PubMed, Medline,
ERIC, Education Full Text,
Sociological Abstracts, Worldwide
Political Science Abstracts, others on
Subject Guides
6. Searching EconLit: Techniques
• Synonyms and related terms
• Controlled vocabulary (JEL Classification)
• Truncat* and “phrase searching”
• TI: Field searching
• Boolean searching
AND (Green) OR (Red)
9. Practice
Send form with topic, JEL classifications and
one on point APA citation.
1. Does income inequality contribute to
economic instability?
2. What is the economic return on a college
degree?
10. Getting Full Text & Chasing Citations
Journal Finder,
Search
Catalog or
EZborrow
Google it!
11. Finding Data
• Leverage Data from Literature Review
• Subject Page, Economics, Statistics for
frequently used sources
http://library.villanova.edu/research/subject
-guides/economics-and-
statistics/#Statistics
• Statistical Insights- General index
12. Final Tips
• Allow time for exploration and interlibrary
loan
• Search systematically, but hope
serendipity is on your side.