RePEc
RePEc is an economics research website and decentralized bibliographic network for working papers, journal articles, books, software, author profiles, citations, rankings, and services such as IDEAS and EconPapers.
What RePEc is
RePEc, short for Research Papers in Economics, is an economics research website and bibliographic network at repec.org. It helps readers, authors, publishers, institutions, and researchers find and reuse metadata about economics working papers, journal articles, books, chapters, software, citations, and author profiles.
A decentralized index
RePEc works differently from a conventional database run by one central publisher. Participating providers host machine-readable text files on their own servers, and RePEc mirrors and organizes those files for public services. This keeps the system distributed while still giving readers common entry points for search, browsing, rankings, and alerts.
IDEAS and EconPapers
Most readers encounter RePEc through services built on top of its data. IDEAS offers broad search and browsing across the RePEc database, while EconPapers presents economics working papers, journal articles, books, chapters, and software in a reader-facing interface. RePEc itself is the underlying metadata network that those services use.
Authors, institutions, and archives
The RePEc Author Service lets economists claim and maintain profiles linked to their indexed works. Institutions can expose working paper series and track research output, while publishers and research centers can create RePEc archives by following the ReDIF metadata format and related protocols.
Citations, rankings, and alerts
RePEc services add layers around the raw metadata. CitEc provides citation data for economics, LogEc reports usage statistics, NEP sends field-specific alerts for new economics papers, and ranking pages use RePEc data to compare authors, institutions, journals, and related research outputs.
Data reuse
The RePEc homepage describes its bibliographic data as public domain and lists other services that use it. Researchers can use RePEc data to study publication patterns, working paper circulation, institutional output, citation relationships, and how economics research moves from preprint-style working papers into journals.
Strengths and limits
RePEc is strongest as a map of economics research metadata, especially working papers and author-linked records. Its limits follow from its decentralized model: coverage depends on participating archives, records can vary in detail, full-text access depends on the provider, and metrics need context rather than being treated as simple judgments of quality.
Why it matters
Economics has a long working-paper culture, so research often circulates before journal publication. RePEc matters because it gives that literature a shared discovery layer, making it easier to follow new work, connect authors to papers, trace versions, and study the economics profession's research output.
WHOIS domain data
Data pulled: June 1, 2026View current WHOIS record
- Domain
- repec.org
- IP address
- 136.167.18.142
- Registrar
- Register.com - Network Solutions, LLC
- WHOIS server
- whois.register.com
- Referral URL
- http://www.register.com
- Created
- February 27, 2000
- Updated
- January 28, 2025
- Expires
- February 27, 2028
- Nameservers
- ns1.openlib.org (95.216.35.87); ns2.openlib.org (65.108.128.18); ns3.openlib.org (65.108.100.210); ns4.openlib.org (95.216.245.19)
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- unsigned
- Contact privacy
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