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Business and Economics: Grey literature

For students undertaking Accounting, Banking & Finance, Business, Law & Taxation, Economics, Econometrics & Business Statistics, Management and Marketing at Monash University

Grey literature is information that is published non-commercially or remains unpublished. It is produced by organisations where publishing is not the primary activity, such as companies, universities, government departments and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Grey literature appears in many formats including reports, patents, posters, statistics, theses and working papers.

Selected examples of grey literature relevant to business and economics

 

Publicly listed company annual reports

Woolworths
Research papers

SSRN (Social Sciences)

RePEc (Economics)
Official statistics

Australian Bureau of Statistics
Publications from non-governmental organisations

Transparency International

International Labour Organisation 
Reports from research bodies/think tanks

The Grattan Institute

APO (Analysis & Policy Observatory)
Private sector economic research publications

ANZ Bank
Reports from government agencies

Reserve Bank of Australia

Productivity Commission
Standards

Australian Accounting Standards Board

 

Tips for finding and using grey literature:

  • Identify key organisations/stakeholders relevant to your topic and visit their websites.
  • Perform a Google Advanced Search on the topic, using a search strategy - see How to Search.
  • Check the quality of the sources you find - see Evaluating Information.
  • Quality and authoritative online sources often include links to other quality sources.

 

Specialist grey literature research databases