If you're still learning about your topic, doing background research will make the research process much easier!
Background research (presearch) helps you figure out the lay of the land of your topic: what are the big theories you should know about? Who are the thought leaders whose names you should look out for? What kind of vocabulary is used in this field and how can you use it to create efficient searches? You can use many different resources for your background research and they don't have to be library and/or scholarly. Wikipedia can actually be really helpful for this stage.
However, if you're interested in using library resources, we've listed a few below.
Elsevier's Handbooks in Economics series offer entry points into specific topics in Econ and allow you to learn the ins and outs of a topic before diving into scholarly articles.
Annual Reviews is a collection of more than 50 annual review journals covering many science and social science disciplines. Each journal exclusively publish review articles which synthesize and summarize research within a field or discipline. This database includes full-text access to every historical article and issue within the collection as well as the most recent articles published.
Economics by 
The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics by 
The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms by 