Where to read econ papers for free?

[One on One]

Does anyone have any good sources for reading econ papers for free? I have tried looking up some journals, but they are all pay-to-read. Thanks.

[claphands]

I assume you aren't currently in school?

IDEAS: Economics and Finance Research has a lot of downloadable ones, though plenty are gated. The working papers are the least likely to be pay-to-read

Economics E-Journal — Economics E-Journal

also when using scholar.google.com if you click "all X versions" sometimes the author or some institution will have a free copy hosted somewhere

[Blondin]

If you are interested in micro theory there is a good open source journal, Theoretical Economics: Theoretical Economics

Otherwise you can also browse the websites of researchers, most of them put their publications as pdf files.

[EnviroEcon]

I'm a fan of EconPapers. Similar to previously listed sources, some papers are blocked, but you have access to a large majority.

[elcapitano]

*deleted

[SquareSquare]

The latest research is usually free in the form of working papers. It takes about 1-3 years for a working paper to be approved at some journals, so until the paper is published the authors usually keep a free version on their own homepage.

Also, try to use google scholar - scholar.google.com. It's a great tool that can link to many (but not all) working and published papers.

[Econtastic]

Originally Posted by SquareSquare

The latest research is usually free in the form of working papers. It takes about 1-3 years for a working paper to be approved at some journals, so until the paper is published the authors usually keep a free version on their own homepage.

Sort of an extension on this: If you know the author(s) you want to read, check their homepages, a lot of them tend to keep online copies of their papers.

[constrainedoptimizer]

Originally Posted by Econtastic

Sort of an extension on this: If you know the author(s) you want to read, check their homepages, a lot of them tend to keep online copies of their papers.

An extension upon an extension, I suppose; browse the homepages of graduate students and read their job market papers. This may give you another parameter to judge what types of papers are coming out of certain possible schools you may be applying to (if you haven't applies to graduate school yet).

[SquareSquare]

Originally Posted by constrainedoptimizer

An extension upon an extension, I suppose; browse the homepages of graduate students and read their job market papers. This may give you another parameter to judge what types of papers are coming out of certain possible schools you may be applying to (if you haven't applies to graduate school yet).

Extension cubed: read the threads on TM and EP to get ideas about what budding economists are thinking about. This will give you an insight into what they might write for their job market paper and thus whether Economics is something you might want to spend a significant part of your life on (if you haven't decided to become an economist).

[YoungEconomist]

Maybe a stupid question, but do academic economists ever have to pay to read an article, or is it always free for them?