此資料庫由美國經濟學會 (American Economic Association) 所建立，收錄自 1969 至今逾 550 種國際性經濟學領域之期刊文章、書籍、研究報告、會議論文及博碩士論文等相關文獻。主題包括經濟理論、歷史、貨幣理論、財政制度、勞工經濟、國際性經濟、區域性經濟及都市經濟等相關領域。對於欲從事經濟學研究的使用單位能提供較廣範的參考文獻。目前資料收錄自 1969 年至今的資料逾 735,000 筆，並每年以約 26,000 筆的速度持續增加中。資料庫 60% 的資料來自美國地區以外的國際性專業期刊；99％ 資料以英文撰寫。凡缺乏經濟學內容及無作者之文章，不予收錄，每筆資料含基本書目資料、主題及地區說明，自 1987 年開始，每筆資料加上摘要說明。
EconLit, the American Economic Association's electronic database, is the world's foremost source of references to economic literature. EconLit adheres to the high quality standards long recognized by subscribers to the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) and is a reliable source of citations and abstracts to economic research dating back to 1886. It provides links to full-text articles in all fields of economics, including capital markets, country studies, econometrics, economic forecasting, environmental economics, government regulations, labor economics, monetary theory, urban economics, and much more. EconLit uses the JEL classification system and controlled vocabulary of keywords to index six types of records: journal articles, books, collective volume articles, dissertations, working papers, and full-text book reviews from the Journal of Economic Literature. These sources bring the total records available in the database to more than 1.2 million.
