Template Inquiry about DOI

(This template can be used by the Data Editor to contact data providers)

Dear [name],

the American Economic Association has a data and code availability policy that applies to researchers who submit articles for publication to our journals. Inter alia, this policy requests that authors provide accurate and persistent information about how other researchers can find and access data, whether that data be created by the authors or by third parties. Elements of such information are persistent URLs or Digital Object Identifiers (DOI), description of access conditions, and terms of use.

One of our authors has used your data, and we are inquiring about any such information you could provide either to us or to authors upon request. We are looking for - DOI for specific datasets or files - URLs or DOI pointing to licenses (or, if the files are license-free, a statement to that effect) - URLs or DOI pointing to terms of use - the conditions under which researchers may use and possibly republish the data (this may be the same as the license) - URLs, DOI, or information regarding how long you will maintain the datasets you make available If you have such information available, we would be grateful if you could point us in the right direction. If you do not yet have such information, any plans you might have would be of interest to us.

This is a new initiative at the AEA, and we understand that historically, much of what we are looking for above was not part of standard practice in our research community. We are trying to improve the overall transparency and thus reproducible of economics, and this is part of that effort.

I would be available to discuss this further with you and your institution.

Sincerely,

Data Editor of the American Economic Association