This research was undertaken to develop search filters to identify economic evaluations in MEDLINE and Embase. The performance of these filters and published filters were tested in terms of sensitivity and precision using a gold standard set of known economic evaluations. Thirteen filters for MEDLINE were tested and three yielded a sensitivity of 99%. The best precision for one of these filters was 4%. The best compromise filter provided 84% sensitivity for 13% precision. Four filters provided greater than 99% sensitivity in Embase with precision ranging from 1.5- 2.9%. The best compromise filter provided 23% precision and 63% sensitivity.