What is a DOI and how does it help my research?

A digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique and persistent link to specific electronically published content. DOIs are often used to identify academic, professional, and government information, such as journal articles, research reports and data sets, and official publications. DOIs make a paper significantly easier to find and cite.

SSRN is a registered member of Crossref services and provides DOI’s to SSRN authors at no charge.

What is SSRN’s policy on DOIs? Are all new drafts registered with Crossref?
If your submission includes a full-text working paper, a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) will be added to the abstract page in the Suggested Citation area. DOIs are generated by Crossref and can take up to one week to appear on the abstract page. Once the DOI has been assigned, it becomes a permanent record of that preprint. Revisions have no impact on the original DOI assignment. Because DOIs are designed to be persistent, a DOI string can’t be changed once registered, and DOIs cannot be deleted. DOIs for items that have been retracted or otherwise withdrawn are directed to a retraction or withdrawal notice on SSRN’s website.

Should a preprint draft be replaced with accepted manuscript/preprint/published versions?
If the author does not have permission to post the published version, they should leave the preprint on SSRN and update the Reference section by providing the DOI to the published version of the paper. If they do have permission to post the published version, it is recommended that they create a new submission that houses that version. This will allow the preprint DOI to remain intact and not direct the reader to the published version.