Economics

As you compile various types of sources for your research paper, it is helpful to refer the following checklist of bibliographic details for each item:

1. Who is the author/creator of the work? It could be a person, a company, a government body, etc.
2. What is the title of the work?
3. Was the item published in a print source (e.g. a book, newspaper, magazine, or journal)?
   • For articles: do you know the date, volume, issue, and page numbers?
   • For books: do you know the publication year, place of publication, and publisher's name?
4. Was the item published in an online source (e.g. website or database)? If so, when was the document written or  updated? When did you access the document? What is the document/web site's URL or DOI?

Faculty and graduate students who are submitting articles for publication in a specific journal are required to follow the editorial style guidelines of that journal. Many journals follow one of the standard style guides (e.g. AEA) with a few variations. These guidelines will cover not just the format of the bibliographic references, but the formatting of the entire article.

The following citation style guides are frequently used when writing Economics papers. They are based on the Chicago Manual of Style Author-Date system. 

For help with other citation styles, please consult the Style Guide research guide: