For us Wikipedians, the most valuable commodities are time and labor. In order to use these scarce resources most productively, WP:ECON utilizes article assessment. By assessing quality, we see which articles need the most work. By assessing importance, we know which topics are most vital to economics. This information is critical for WP:ECON's continued rational decision-making.

When considering large-scale article improvement the opportunity costs of misdirected effort are unacceptable. Perhaps this explains why the last drive was 16 years ago.

Assessing an article is easy! Before you begin you may want to look at the Editorial Team's assessment scale with examples to get a feel for what the different ratings mean.

1. Go to Unassessed Economics articles and Unknown-importance Economics articles. These categories contain the articles that need to be assessed.
2. Click on an article link - this should take you to the talk page.
3. Click on the "Article" tab - look at the article and make an assessment. (See also: Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment if you need help)
4. Click on the "Discussion" tab - this should return you to the talk page.
5. Click the "Edit this Page" tab. You will see {{WikiProject Economics|class=|importance=}} at the top of the page.
6. Fill in the tag's attributes.
   1. Fill in |class= using one of these values: Stub, Start, List, C, B, GA, A, FA; examples and criteria for these classes are listed below.
   2. Fill in |importance= using one of these values: Top, High, Mid, Low, NA; examples of these ratings for WikiProject Economics are below.
7. You're done! (unless you want to go back and do another assessment) -- we hope you will!

It is also helpful to put the tag {{WikiProject Economics}} on any economics article you come across that haven't been associated with this project. Even if it is left ungraded, it this will be added it to the category of unassessed Economic articles.

From February 2014 onward the top 500 most visited 'popular' pages will be recorded each month. It is worth checking for any ungraded article in this list. Note, it is a static list - therefore will still show ungraded even after grading. The next months snapshot will reflect any changes.

The above guide to article assessments is adapted from WikiProject Business.

Below is a list of the importance criteria developed by the WikiProject Economics community. It is very much a work in progress, and as such is open to debate, interpretation, and modification. Please be bold when assessing! If you come across an article that you think is assessed incorrectly, change it to what you think it should be. If the criteria indicate one level but you think it's another, reassess it and discuss on the assessment talk page to let the community weigh in. As we decide more edge cases, the criteria will become focused and reflect consensus (they are meant to be positive, not normative).

Note that priority is a relative term. If priority or importance values are applied within WikiProject Economics, these only reflect the perceived priority to this project. An article judged to be "Top-Class" for WP:ECON may be only "Mid-Class" in another project.