National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

The National Bureau of Economic Research was founded in 1920 and is "dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. The NBER is committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community." Today, some 600 academics are NBER researchers, and they focus on "four types of empirical research: developing new statistical measurements, estimating quantitative models of economic behavior, assessing the effects of public policies on the U.S. economy, and projecting the effects of alternative policy proposals." One of their best known projects is the dating of U.S. recessions and expansions.

NBER working papers are available here; abstracts are free. The papers are free to subscribers of the hard copy series, and to computers in non-OPEC or non-OECD countries (determined by the "top-level-domain" of the computer, and "reverse name-lookup" must be functioning). If neither of these holds, papers can be purchased. Papers from before the "Internet era" are available too, and were recently reduced in size to speed their download.

Besides working papers, you can also read about their other publications. This includes not only their many books, but their free "Digest" and "NBER Reporter" which summarizes particularly interesting research.

They offer two e-mail notification services. One is for their working papers (which can be customized by keywords by author, title or abstract, as well as JEL category) and the other is for releases of government economic statistics. It sends a URL when when data is scheduled to be released. Both of these require free registration.

Other NBER offerings are described elsewhere. Their data holdings are described in NBER Data Library as is their NBER's Macro-Historical Database , TAXSIM , and New Ph.D.s in Economics (NBER) .

Finally, they offer all sorts of information about themselves and their varied programs.

http://www.nber.org/