RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) API

Overview

RePEc is the largest decentralized bibliographic database for economics, indexing 4.4M+ items (working papers, journal articles, books, software) from 2,600+ publishers. It powers IDEAS and EconPapers — the two most-used economics paper search engines. The API provides metadata access and citation data. Free, no authentication required for basic access.

Access Methods

IDEAS Search API

# Search economics papers
curl "https://ideas.repec.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?q=monetary+policy+inflation&cmd=Search&fmt=json"

# Search specific types
# Working papers
curl "https://ideas.repec.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?q=fiscal+stimulus&ul=%%2Fp%%2F&fmt=json"

# Journal articles
curl "https://ideas.repec.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?q=trade+liberalization&ul=%%2Fa%%2F&fmt=json"

RePEc Simple API

# Get metadata for a handle
curl "https://api.repec.org/handle?handle=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28104"

# Author profile by short-id
curl "https://api.repec.org/author?short-id=ppi1"

# List items in a series
curl "https://api.repec.org/series?series=RePEc:nbr:nberwo"

CitEc Citation Data

# Get citations for a paper
curl "https://citec.repec.org/api/plain/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28104"

# Response: list of citing paper handles

LogEc Usage Statistics

# Get download/view statistics
curl "https://logec.repec.org/scripts/paperstat.pf?h=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28104"

RePEc Handle Structure

RePEc:{archive}:{series}:{id}

Examples:
RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28104   → NBER Working Paper 28104
RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:114:y:2024:i:1:p:1-25  → AER article
RePEc:ecm:emetrp:v:92:y:2024:i:3:p:821-845 → Econometrica article
RePEc:red:sed024:1234    → SED 2024 meeting paper

Major Archives

Prefix	Publisher
nbr	National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
aea	American Economic Association
ecm	Econometric Society
wbk	World Bank
imf	International Monetary Fund
fed	Federal Reserve System
cpr	Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Python Usage

import requests

IDEAS_URL = "https://ideas.repec.org/cgi-bin/htsearch"
CITEC_URL = "https://citec.repec.org/api/plain"


def search_economics(query: str, max_results: int = 20,
                     paper_type: str = None) -> list:
    """Search economics papers on IDEAS/RePEc."""
    params = {
        "q": query,
        "cmd": "Search",
        "fmt": "json",
        "ps": max_results,
    }
    if paper_type == "working_papers":
        params["ul"] = "%2Fp%2F"
    elif paper_type == "articles":
        params["ul"] = "%2Fa%2F"

    resp = requests.get(IDEAS_URL, params=params, timeout=30)
    resp.raise_for_status()
    data = resp.json()

    results = []
    for item in data.get("matches", []):
        results.append({
            "title": item.get("title", ""),
            "url": item.get("url", ""),
            "handle": item.get("handle", ""),
            "authors": item.get("authors", ""),
            "date": item.get("date", ""),
            "abstract": item.get("abstract", "")[:300],
        })
    return results


def get_citations(handle: str) -> list:
    """Get papers citing a given RePEc handle."""
    resp = requests.get(f"{CITEC_URL}/{handle}", timeout=30)
    resp.raise_for_status()
    citations = []
    for line in resp.text.strip().split("\n"):
        line = line.strip()
        if line and line.startswith("RePEc:"):
            citations.append(line)
    return citations


def search_working_papers(topic: str) -> list:
    """Search specifically for working papers."""
    return search_economics(topic, paper_type="working_papers")


# Example: find monetary policy research
papers = search_economics("central bank digital currency", max_results=10)
for p in papers:
    print(f"[{p['date']}] {p['title']}")
    print(f"  {p['authors']}")

# Example: citation analysis
if papers and papers[0].get("handle"):
    cites = get_citations(papers[0]["handle"])
    print(f"\nCited by {len(cites)} papers")
    for c in cites[:5]:
        print(f"  {c}")

Key Data Products

Product	URL	Description
IDEAS	ideas.repec.org	Full-text search engine
EconPapers	econpapers.repec.org	Alternative search interface
CitEc	citec.repec.org	Citation analysis
LogEc	logec.repec.org	Usage statistics
AuthorService	authors.repec.org	Author profiles and rankings
CollEc	collec.repec.org	Institutional research output

Rankings

RePEc publishes monthly rankings of economists, institutions, and journals based on citations, downloads, and h-index:

# Top economists
curl "https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.all.html"

# Top institutions
curl "https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.inst.all.html"

References

• IDEAS/RePEc
• EconPapers
• RePEc Author Service
• CitEc
• Zimmermann, C. (2013). "Academic Rankings with RePEc." Econometrics 1(3): 249-264.