What is so special about Economics?

What is RePEc?

What made RePEc grow?

What are some lessons to be learned?

What is so special about Economics?

1. We take our research extremely seriously
2. Insane peer-reviewing process Exhibit (see Figure 1), Counterpoint
3. Hence longer and longer papers
4. Longer times along the entire publication process
5. Need for communication of "preliminary" results
6. Working paper culture

But...

1. Who gets to read working papers?
2. Up to 1990's: no good channels
3. Hence, insiders are at the frontier of research
4. The others learn about it several years later

What is RePEc?

Research Papers in Economics

Mission: enhance the dissemination of research in economics through the democratization of the process for authors and readers

RePEc.org

How?

1. Institutions hold metadata about their papers on their web/ftp servers
2. RePEc "services" gather that metadata and disseminate it
3. Main services: EconPapers, IDEAS, NEP
4. Others: Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic Search, ResearchGate, Econlit, EBSCO/ProQuest, OpenAIRE, Altmetric, etc.
5. "Enhancements:" Author registation, citation analysis, ReplicationWiki, linking pre-print and article, and more (often crowd-sourced)

What do we have?

1. Created in 1997, precursor in 1992
2. Close to 2000 participating archives
3. 51,000 registered authors
4. 2.4M listed items, of which 50K in two open repositories (moderated). Includes code.
5. RePEc data used for scholarly research

What about ressources?

1. Small grants
2. Sponsored hosting
3. Volunteers, volunteers, volunteers

What made RePEc grow?

1. Set incentives right
2. Clear way to get your stuff read
3. Provide additional value: citation analysis
4. Play on the academic ego: rankings
5. Gentle reminders
6. Stay ahead of commercial "competition".

What are some lessons to be learned?

1. Incentives are important. Think why the busy academic would want to invest time in this.
2. Provide value beyond a repository
3. Create critical mass
4. Find a few enthusiasts
5. Getting the backing of a scholarly society helps
6. Less talk, more action