EconPapers / SSRN Scraper

Scrape EconPapers — one of the largest freely accessible repositories of economics and social science research papers, indexing papers from NBER, World Bank, IMF, CEPR, and hundreds of other working paper series with 1M+ papers total.

Note: This actor targets EconPapers (econpapers.repec.org), a comprehensive index of the RePEc database. SSRN required authentication that made scraping unreliable, so EconPapers — which covers the same research community without any login requirements — is used as the data source.

What you can do

• Search for papers by keyword in titles (searches NBER working papers)
• Get recent papers from major economics series (NBER, Dallas Fed, and more)
• Fetch specific papers by paper handle/ID
• Browse by JEL code — filter papers by economic classification (C21 = Instrumental Variables, G12 = Asset Pricing, etc.)

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	Select	search, recentPapers, byPaperId, byJELCode
query	Text	Keyword to search in paper titles (mode=search)
series	Select	Paper series to browse: NBER Working Papers, Dallas Fed Economics, etc.
paperIds	String list	Paper handles like nbrnberwo/35221 or bare numbers like 35221 (mode=byPaperId)
jelCode	Text	JEL classification code like C21, G12, L0 (mode=byJELCode)
maxItems	Integer	Max papers to return (1–500, default: 20)

Example inputs

Search NBER for "machine learning" papers:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "machine learning",
  "series": "nbrnberwo",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Get recent NBER working papers:

{
  "mode": "recentPapers",
  "series": "nbrnberwo",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Fetch specific papers by ID:

{
  "mode": "byPaperId",
  "paperIds": ["nbrnberwo/35221", "nbrnberwo/28232"]
}

Browse Finance papers (JEL G12):

{
  "mode": "byJELCode",
  "jelCode": "G12",
  "series": "nbrnberwo",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Output

Each record includes:

Field	Description
paperId	EconPapers paper handle (e.g. nbrnberwo/35221)
title	Paper title
authors	List of author names
abstract	Paper abstract
jel	List of JEL classification codes
publicationDate	Publication date (YYYY-MM or YYYY)
paperUrl	EconPapers or persistent link URL
pdfUrl	Direct PDF download URL (when available)
networkName	Name of the working paper series
seriesCode	Internal series code
recordType	Always "paper"
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp when the record was scraped

Example output record

{
  "paperId": "nbrnberwo/35221",
  "title": "Proposed Mergers Where Efficiencies Are Needed Most Might Be the Least Likely to Deliver Them",
  "authors": ["Robert Metcalfe", "Alexandre B. Sollaci", "Chad Syverson"],
  "abstract": "Mergers are commonly evaluated by weighing their expected market power effects...",
  "jel": ["L0"],
  "publicationDate": "2026-05",
  "paperUrl": "https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35221",
  "pdfUrl": "http://www.nber.org/papers/w35221.pdf",
  "networkName": "NBER Working Papers",
  "seriesCode": "nbrnberwo",
  "recordType": "paper",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-25T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Data Source

EconPapers (econpapers.repec.org) is hosted by Örebro University and indexes research from the Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) database. It provides free public access to metadata and abstracts for 1M+ working papers and journal articles across economics, finance, and related social sciences.

JEL Classification Codes

JEL codes classify papers by economic topic:

Code	Subject
A	General Economics
B	History of Economic Thought
C	Mathematical Methods / Econometrics
D	Microeconomics
E	Macroeconomics
F	International Economics
G	Financial Economics
H	Public Economics
I	Health, Education, and Welfare
J	Labor and Demographic Economics
K	Law and Economics
L	Industrial Organization
M	Business Administration
N	Economic History
O	Economic Development
Q	Environmental Economics
R	Urban and Real Estate Economics
Z	Other Special Topics

Common specific codes: C21 (Instrumental Variables), G12 (Asset Pricing), J31 (Wages), L11 (Production, Pricing), D61 (Welfare Economics).

Available Paper Series

Series Code	Name
nbrnberwo	NBER Working Papers (National Bureau of Economic Research)
fipd00001	Dallas Fed Economics
fthaascbu	General Working Papers
cycwpaper	Working Papers

FAQ

Does this require an API key or login? No. EconPapers is fully publicly accessible without registration.

Can I access full paper text? EconPapers provides metadata and abstracts. Full paper PDFs are often available via the pdfUrl field, but access depends on the publisher (some are open access, others require subscriptions).

How current is the data? NBER adds new papers continuously. The series listing shows the most recent papers at the top. Use mode=recentPapers to get the latest additions.

What's the difference between search and byJELCode? search filters paper titles by keyword. byJELCode fetches each paper's full detail to check the JEL codes assigned by the authors.

Why is byJELCode slower? It requires fetching individual paper pages to read JEL codes (which aren't in the listing page). Expect roughly 1-2 seconds per paper checked.

Can I get papers from other series besides NBER? Yes — use the series input field to select from the available series. New series can be requested via the actor's issue tracker.